Blinded in the Light
by ChristianOtaku
Summary: The Doctor and Clara respond to a Mauve distress call. Will their assistance be welcomed? Or is it all just a trap? Expect lots of whump all around. Rating T for violence.
1. Traffic Lights

"So, Doctor! Where to now?" Clara asked. "I'm ready to see something amazing."

"Adventure time!" The Doctor declared. The Doctor fiddled with the controls, throwing the Tardis into the Time Vortex with a sudden jerk. However before he could pull the next lever the Tardis console began flashing Mauve lights. The Doctor froze in his tracks.

"Doctor, what's wrong?" Clara asked startled.

"A distress call, Mauve."

"Mauve?"

"You know what Mauve means. You have to know what Mauve means. Everyone knows what Mauve means!"

"No one's told me."

"Oh...Clara! Mauve is bad. The biggest of bad. The all time never not good! It's like. Traffic lights."

"Traffic lights?"

"Yes. Green means go, Yellow is yield and red is stop. Well Mauve is like a fourth light. It means FOR THE SAKE OF THE UNIVERSE STOP! STOP NOW AS SOON AS YOU SEE THIS LIGHT STOP EVERY ONE STOP DON"T WAIT ANOTHER MOMENT STOP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD STOP. So Mauve in a distress call would mean...?"

"Help?" Clara suggested.

"More like, 'FOR THE SAKE OF EVERYTHING GOOD PLEASE HELP! STOP NOW AS SOON. HELP US PLEASE. SOS MAY DAY. EVERY ONE WITHIN RANGE PLEASE COME NOW TO HELP US. DON"T WAIT ANOTHER MOMENT HELP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD HELP."

"So it's pretty serious."

The Doctor gave her a telling look.

"Very serious?" Clara asked.

"Mauve is as serious as it gets."

"Oh, well lets go help them."

The Doctor hesitated, his hand resting on a lever. "We could help them later, we can go get tea and scones in the Julogron System," the Doctor said quietly to Clara.

She gave him a look, "Doctor, we can have tea and scones anywhere, you said Mauve was as serious as it gets. Lets go help them out. Let's do some good."

"Of course you're right."

Clara tilted her head slightly to the side and narrowed her eyes, "Was that a test?"

The Doctor pulled the lever and the Tardis materialized into space.

"I feel like that was a test."

"Never mind Clara!" The Doctor pulled monitor around and fiddled with some buttons.

"What are you doing?"

"Being overly cautious."

"Why?"

"Why what?"

"Being overly cautious, you're never cautious, I didn't know cautious was in your vocabulary." The Doctor looked at Clara, as her face was concerned, with a hint of humor. She pushed the humor out and used her 'serious' voice as emphasis, "Doctor, I'm serious."

"So much serious. Right well cautious because Mauve alert is very serious and perhaps I should work on adding a bit of caution into my life. Occasionally. They could be under attack. This part of space and time it's not unusual, pirates can be involved."

"Yar har fidelidee, do what you want because a pirate is free!"

"No, no, not that. Don't do that. Not Earth's media merriment pirates with the parrots, the pillaging and rape and killing sort. Only in space in spaceships. That sort. Now shush. I'm trying to hail them." Clara rolled her eyes at his terminology. She scooted closer when the monitor went from black to static to a poorly lit background. Sparks flew out in the background and a figure dodged passed them and came up the screen.

"Hullo?!" The figure made it to the front and her face came into view. Her blonde messy hair seemed pale green in the poor lighting of the room. She couldn't have been older than eighteen.

"Hello, the Doctor and Clara here, we got your distress call, everything okay?"

"Did you say you're a doctor? A medic? Please tell me you're a medic."

Clara gave the Doctor a look and he deliberately ignored her. "Yes, ish. Report your status, I'll see how we can help."

"Um I'm Raksha, this is star ship Akasam Sedo. It's bad, low on power, we lost the crew to badger pirates, severe damage to the engines and life support. We need a medic!"

"Did she just say badger pirates?" Clara asked.

"You managed to escape that's good. We'll come aboard and help."

"I don't know how you're going to dock, that's damaged too."

"We have our ways. See you soon." The Doctor pushed away the screen. He moved around the console and landed her.

"Alright, both shoes on let's go!" the Doctor declared.

"Badger pirates?" Clara repeated, but the Doctor didn't answer as he ran to the door. As they stepped onto the Akasam Sedo Clara jumped as sparks showered above her head. The ship groaned and tilted and Mauve lights dimly lit the corridor. There were black streaks on the ground and Clara covered her mouth as she saw an arm.

"Doctor," she whispered, trying not to gag or cry.

"I know. Stay close to me."

They inched slowly down the hall until the Doctor found a control panel. He quickly accessed it, just to double check Raksha's story. She'd told the truth. He found a recording of the badger pirates forcing entry and disabling the docking station.

"They really are badgers?" Clara asked again.

"Humans and their experimentation. They wanted to save the badgers but they'd gone extinct, they saved some DNA and for some reason thought they should make badger slash human hybrids. They were used as servants and slaves...well still are actually, but many of them escaped, will escape and become pirates. I've met them before. I've met some not so bad ones too. They just need a bit of love." The Doctor sighed as he witnessed the pirates slay the crew and salvage fuel, parts, food and resources.

"AAAAARGH!"

The Doctor and Clara jumped back as a figure ran towards the other end of the hall, he had a makeshift spear in his hands. The Doctor pulled Clara back towards the Tardis and then forced her hands up.

"It's okay, just us. The Doctor and Clara, we aren't armed! Here to help!"

As the figure approached them, he slowed down and the Doctor and Clara could see he was just a boy, though tall for his age.

"How'd you get here? The docking station is broken, what's that box?"

"How about you put down the spear and we can sort this out. We aren't pirates, I swear. We got the distress call."

The boy looked unsure. When the Doctor tried to take a step forward, the boy threateningly jerked it towards the Doctor. The Doctor backed away. "Sorry, what did you say your name was?"

"For the love of all that's holy, Hashiim put that down!" The face of Raksha came into view. "They're here to help us!" She looked up at the Doctor and Clara. "Please, Ereid needs you!" Raksha took the Doctor's hand and pulled him down the hallway, Clara followed him and Hashiim took to the rear.

"I saw what happened on the control panel," the Doctor told Raksha. "They left this ship for dead. I didn't see you nor Hashiim in it, who are you?"

"I'll explain after you help Ereid." Raksha promised.

After turning the next corner they came to an halt in front of a door labeled sickbay. Raksha moved slowly in, followed by the Doctor, Clara and Hashiim. Most of the beds had suffered some damage, but all were empty except for one. On that bed laid a seven year old boy. He was covered in sweat and crying. His left leg was a bloodied mess. Clara covered her mouth.

"Raksha?" the boy whimpered.

She went to him and held his hand, tears escaping her own eyes. "I found someone who will help us."

"No, it won't help. Why'd you let them? It hurts!" The boy cried and shivered before promptly passing out.

"It's going to be okay." Raksha looked up at the Doctor. "Please help him."

"Right!" The Doctor moved into action. He searched the medical supplies and found what he needed to stabilize the boy. He found an oxygen tank and connected it to a face mask the appropriate size for Ereid. He gave it to Raksha to place over Ereid's mouth and nose. Then the Doctor lifted away the makeshift bandages to inspect the bloody the wound. He winced when he saw a piece of the bone was sticking out. With clean hands and gloves the Doctor gently tested to see if the bone would go back in. It did so without resistance. The Doctor felt Ereid's leg to see if the bones were in a good position. He went to the scanners, but sparks flew when he tried to activate it. The Doctor hesitated, then decided to clean and re bandage the wound and finally put a temporary splint on the leg.

"Alright, Ereid is going to be okay. But I'm afraid to say your ship is beyond repair."

"I know," Raksha answered.

"How many of you are left?"

"Just us."

"What?"

"Me, Ereid and Hashiim. They're my brothers our Mum was the Captain. She had us hide. The ship shook so much that one of the shelves fell onto Ereid and crushed his leg...We are all that's left." Raksha looked away, tears streaming down her face."

"Okay, it's okay, c'mon, you and your brothers are coming with us, we'll get you set up and somewhere safe. I'll get Ereid, Raksha you carry the oxygen. Clara you take the lead. And Hashiim, where's Hashiim?"

"I'm here!" He called from the door way. He had one hand in the air and the other still clutched the spear.

"Hashiim, put down the spear and no stabbing. We're all good friends now."

"Okay." He threw it away.

The Doctor carefully picked up Ereid and Raksha followed closely with the oxygen. Clara led the way back to the Tardis. She pulled out her key and opened the door. A high pitched whistle whipped passed the Doctor's ear, nearly grazing him. A zipping sound followed and hit the Tardis console. It pinged around for a moment before latching on. The Doctor pulled back. It was some sort of grappling hook with a wire that stretched through the control room, out the Tardis door and down the corridor.

"What?!" His voice became instant fury and the Cloister bell rang out in warning. A second grappling hook and wire shot out from the darkness, this time catching the Doctor's cheek before latching onto something in the Tardis. The Doctor stumbled back and winced. He freed a hand to touch the gash on his right cheek, blood oozed as the gash was very deep. "Into the Tardis!" the Doctor shouted. He stood up and tried to move forward, but Ereid's head jerked back as his oxygen mask was pulled tight. The Doctor looked back. Raksha had put down the tank. "What are you doing? Let's go, into the Tardis!"

"I'm sorry. I didn't have a choice. None of us did. Please, help us."

"It's not too late, we can still escape, into the Tardis, into my ship."

"They have Hashiim."

The Doctor looked around and Hashiim was gone. He growled angrily and pulled off the oxygen mask. He turned to go back into the Tardis, but someone had come up behind him, someone much bigger and taller than him. Before the Doctor could make a move that someone grabbed his head and forced a chloroform drenched rag to his mouth and nose. The Doctor couldn't fight while holding onto Ereid. He quickly stopped his breathing and activated his secondary respiratory bypass. He tried to jerk his head back but the alien who held him tightly was much stronger. Raksha promptly took Ereid from the Doctor's arms. The Doctor pleaded with her through his eyes, but she wouldn't look at him. She only held her little brother and wept.

But now the Doctor's arms were free to fight. His right hand tried to wrench away the alien's hand and cloth while the other pulled out the Sonic Screwdriver. He ramped up the setting and let it flare out a blaring noise. The alien's grip relaxed ever so slightly. Slightly enough for the Doctor to wrench himself free. He tumbled and made it into the Tardis.

"Ahah!" he declared with a cough. He raced around the console to where the grappling hooks and caught on and pointed his screwdriver at them. As he tried to get them to release their terrible hold on his ship he noticed Clara, or rather a lack of Clara. He did a quick look around and finally found her on the floor. Her shirt stained red and blood pooled onto the floor of his beloved ship.

"No!" he shouted. He forced himself to focus on the hooks, the Tardis doors couldn't shut without them gone, and they couldn't leave. Just as managed to get one hook off another loud pinging came into the control room, followed by another and another. The Doctor counted twelve more grappling hooks and wires before something hit him in the back of the head and he fell down into darkness.


	2. Close the Doors

"Arg," the Doctor moaned and clenched his eyes shut again. The room was brightly lit, as if the point were to blind him. His head ached and throbbed where he had been rendered unconscious. It hadn't been long, only nineteen minutes. Not much could have happened. But he remembered the Tardis, Clara, Raksha and Ereid. His eyes flew back open and he tried to leap to his feet. His back hit a low ceiling and he fell back to his knees. He looked around. He was in a wire grated cage. It wasn't tall enough for him to stand up, nor long enough for him to stretch out. He had to sit there on his hands and knees like animal.

He reached for the Sonic, only to discover it was gone along with his coat and shoes. They'd had taken his his bow tie and suspenders as well. His wrist watch was replaced with sensitive skin. The Doctor inspected his arm and winced when he applied pressure to the under side half way to his elbow. A small bump and entry wound, confirmed his suspicions. He'd been tagged and tracked. Not only would he have to escape, but find a way to deactivate it. It would be easy with his screwdriver. But if he couldn't find it...The Doctor really didn't want to explore the option of cutting it out himself. He put the thought out of his mind, he had to escape first.

His mind promptly reminded him of Clara and he tried to shake the idea that she was... And the Tardis. They had his Tardis, in his Tardis. The Doctor immediately sought out his connection with his ship. He just hoped that she was alright, both of them.

"NO!"

Clara opened here eyes. Whatever had hit her had hurt and knocked her over. But the Doctor's screams were enough to bring her back. She winced at the pain in her side and looked up at the Doctor as he crumpled to the floor. The console room was covered in grappling hooks. She couldn't get to him and there was a large alien with four small glowing eyes and her head spun with indecision. The Doctor was compromised, the Tardis was compromised, she was compromised. She couldn't carry the Doctor, not with her side burning in near agony. The large alien picked up the Doctor's limp form, knocking the Sonic out of his hand. He didn't notice Clara, but Clara could see badger pirates crowding the front of the Tardis. She couldn't fight them. She made a choice. She grabbed the Sonic and raced into the depths of the Tardis.

"Tardis! Interface! Emergency! Help!" Clara screamed as she limped down the corridor. A door appeared on her left and she went in. "Oh, thank God, sickbay!" She turned back to the door, "Can you lock it, don't let them in. Please!"

"Tardis Interface Enabled."

Clara jumped and winced. She turned around and faced herself. Well the Tardis Interface that took on her own appearance. "Don't do that. You scared me. Why can't you look like the Doctor or something?"

The Tardis Interface just stared back unblinkingly at Clara, "You have a minor laceration to your lower abdominal on the left side. No organ damage. You must clean the wound before knitting the skin together. Then you must secure it with a bandage."

Clara winced as she sat down the Sonic and pulled her jumper up from her left side. "You call that minor?" It was a nasty gash that stung like hell. Clara felt dizzy from just looking at it.

"It is not a fatal injury as long as you take immediate action. You are losing blood. Clean the wound, use the tissue knitter to repair the skin."

"The what?"

"Step one, clean the wound." The Tardis Interface waited.

Clara stood up and went to the sink. She used a rag to wipe away the blood. The Tardis Interface indicated other solutions to spray over the wound as well. Clara gritted her teeth as it stung. After cleaning it, it still continued to ooze blood. The Tardis Interface however then pointed her towards the tissue knitter, an alien tool that Clara had never seen before.

"I don't know how to use that."

"Take it into your hands like Earth's primitive craft tool known as a hot glue gun. Press the nozzle to one side of the wound, pull the trigger and drag it to the other end."

"Primitive, thanks," Clara grumbled, but she obeyed and when she was done the gash had completely disappeared.

"Next, secure a bandage over the wound."

"What wound, I'm all better!" Clara threw her arms up in the air, but immediately doubled over as her side complained with a sharp agony.

"The top tissue layer has been knitted together to prevent bleeding and infection. It will take twenty-three hours for the wound to completely heal."

"Thanks for the slow update."

"The Tardis has been breached."

"Oh great, more slow updates."

"Number one priority has been completed."

"Which is?"

"You."

"What?"

"The Doctor has been compromised and the Tardis has been breached. You have received an injury and cannot help until medical attention reached you."

"Are you saying what I think your saying?" Clara asked with a small smile.

"The doors cannot be closed. The Tardis is breached."

"And the Doctor is compromised, are you asking me for help?"

"The Tardis is breached," the Tardis Interface repeated in Clara's own voice.

"Are you afraid?" Clara asked.

The Tardis Interface turned to a monitor on the wall and a screen of the Tardis Control room came into view. It was swarmed with badger pirates. Sparks were flying as they attacked the console and pulled parts of it away. Others swarmed down the corridors. Another screen came up that showed the corridors changing so that the badger pirates never made it to any doors.

"That's brilliant, I mean the moving the rooms, that's brilliant, sorry about the console, we'll get it sorted."

"This tactic will fail."

"No, I mean I'm sure once we get the Doctor back he'll be able to fix it."

The Tardis Interface stared at Clara and then pointed back to the screen. Clara followed her gaze and saw the pirates detonating a bomb. The sickbay room shook and the explosion seemed to wound the Tardis. Clara looked back at the Interface in horror.

"I can change the rooms and heal the corridors. But it takes energy that is very quickly draining," the Tardis Interface explained.

"Okay, let's think this through. There has to be a way to stop them."

"The Tardis has been breached."

"Yes, I got that part. But what if we could get your doors closed?"

"I could prevent further intrusion," the Tardis Interface answered.

"Okay, so that's our goal, close the doors!"

"The badger pirates search for you."

"Of course they are. Okay, lets think...can you get me to the control room without them noticing? We could use a perception filter."

"Badger pirates are genetically designed to see the fractals in the light that bends-"

"Okay stop, you don't have to explain it like that. Just say it doesn't work on badger pirates."

The Tardis Interface stared back.

"Go on say it."

"Perception filters do not work on Badger Pirates."

"Very good."

"Is this the correct time to give social interaction advice?" the Tardis asked.

"Probably not, but it makes me feel better. So perception filter won't work, can you transport me up to the control room?"

Another explosion shook the sickbay and the Tardis Interface flickered before returning back to HD quality. Clara looked quickly up at a third and four screen as more Badger Pirates planted bombs to the rearranging corridor.

"Okay, you're right, that tactic isn't working. They will just keep damaging you until you run out of energy and we need as much energy as you can muster. Why not let them into the rooms?"

The Tardis Interface just stared back.

"Okay I know it doesn't sound like a good idea, but if you let them into the rooms, they'll stop hurting you. You can hide away any personal affects of yours...or the Doctor's, right? And remember, they're after me."

"They will find you."

"Yes, or a decoy me." Clara smiled as she pointed to the Tardis Interface. "They'll stop hurting you, for a little while, at least. Let them chase you, they'll think you are me. I can get out there. We can do a Luke Skywalker. You can easily cut one of the shorter ones of from the others. I'll knock 'im out and take his clothes. That will work just as well as a perception filter. I'll get to the control room and close the doors. What do you think?"

"I cannot comply, I am an eleventh dimensional matrix folded into a mechanical-"

"Stop, stop. Just stop. Will my plan work?"

The Tardis Interface stared for a moment and then disappeared. Clara looked around frantically until she saw up on the screen the Interface reappear in the hallway. She led them on a wild goose chase through the swimming pool.

"If you can hear me, you're awesome," Clara told the ceiling of the Tardis sickbay. "But you could have told me, 'yes'!" Clara grabbed the Sonic and a portable monitor screen. So she could keep an eye on where the Tardis Interface led the pirates.

Clara stumbled through a closet and quickly found herself in her room. She looked at her map reference as she tried to pick out which badger pirate outfit she'd be able to fit into. Before she could pick one her bedroom door opened. An alien in a black jumpsuit, matching gloves and large elongated helmet barged in.

"I wasn't ready!" Clara yelled at the Tardis. Her bedroom door seemed to close from its own accord. The Badger Pirate advanced on Clara and she quickly turned back to her closet. A neat trick she learned ages ago. Her closet was connected to the entire Tardis Wardrobe. Clara assumed that it would be absolutely cluttered, knowing the Doctor, but a fair amount of it had been organized. There was a very heavy plaque on the wall with a picture of a ginger haired woman. It read "Organized by Donna Noble."

Clara stumbled over a pile of fur coats as the badger pirate shot his weapon at her. The Tardis rocked as somewhere another explosion detonated. The plaque fell from the wall and landed in front of Clara. She grabbed it and squashed herself behind a curtain of long dresses. The badger pirate found it just as difficult to climb over the discarded coats as did Clara. He looked into the twisting aisle of the wardrobe. He slowly walked forward and passed Clara, giving her enough time to jump out from the long dresses. Clara used all of her strength as she swung the plaque against the back of the badger pirate's head. The badger pirate fell forward in a heap.

Clara put the plaque back up on the wall, "Thank you, Donna, for your help."

"NO!" the Doctor screamed as he beat against his cage. His head pounded with the Cloister Bell. She was in agony, they were hurting his Tardis, tearing her apart. "Please, Stop! Leave her alone!" But no one listened to him and his hands bled from beating against the rough wire grating.


	3. Badger Badger Badger Badger MUSHROOM

The Doctor had struggled and scraped his hands on the wire grating holding him prisoner. It had taken him ages to bend the thick wires as the metal dug in his hands bled. It was worth it though. He made progress on the lock that secured his cage. It was tricky without his sonic and he had to rely on senses other than sight because of the angle he couldn't see the lock. He worried that it would take too long and his headache was getting worse. It had been well over an hour since the Tardis first screamed through their connection. Her screams of agony inside his head shook him to his core. He could feel the explosions as the pirates ripped his ship apart. He shuddered and winced as his head throbbed with her pain. He whispered to her in Gallifreyan through their connection, to try to ease her pain. He had to get out, he had to stop them.

He pulled his fingers back into his cage, he could hear someone, several someones coming his way. He waited impatiently for them to arrive.

"What?" one of them asked. The Doctor could only see three pairs of legs. The way he was squashed into the cage made it impossible to lift his head up high enough.

"Its been trying to undo the lock," another said with disbelief.

"Urg, now we have to get it replaced," the third said.

"It is worse than that, its completely mangled it, it won't open now," the first said with frustration.

The second pirate kicked at the door of the Doctor's cage. It made him flinch as he was pressed up against it to begin with.

"Stop, we have a simple solution to this," the First said, "Vorg, mind helping us out a bit?"

"Vandalism? My pleasure," the voice was deep and dark and it made the Doctor shiver. The pirates backed away as the tall alien who had tried to knock out the Doctor with chloroform came into view. Well at least his legs did. His large lumpy gray hands gripped the door of the Doctor's cage. With a small grunt 'Vorg' ripped the cage door off.

Before the Doctor could make his escape the pirates dragged him out. The Doctor went limp on the floor with a sigh of relief as he finally got to stretch out his long limbs. It didn't last long though. Something metallic pressed against his neck and his vision went white. He yelled and writhed on the floor as electricity coursed through his body. He gasped for air when the prod was taken from his body and the electricity came to an abrupt stop. He groaned when his twitching arms were jerked up behind him and cuffed.

"Was that really necessary?" he asked when he finally managed some air into his lungs.

"Yes," the three pirates said at once.

The pirates pulled him up to his feet, but the Doctor couldn't hold himself up. The electricity was still causing painful muscle spasms, making his legs jerk and feel like jelly.

"Sorry, can't help you until my nerves calm down. See if you hadn't done that I could walk complacently to where ever you wanted. Now you'll just have to wait."

The first pirate pulled out the prod again and pressed it against his neck again. The Doctor gasped a 'no' before the electricity sent him into another writhing mess on the floor. It was shorter than the first time, but the Doctor opted not to speak as he struggled to get oxygen into his lungs. Vorg grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and dragged him down the corridor.

Vorg slung him into a room and the Doctor tumbled and groaned when he finally came to a stop on his stomach. He was going to have bruises all up and down his arms and on his back from where his wrists and cuffs dug in.

"What the hell?" a young feminine voice asked. "You can't just throw subjects into the room like that."

"It deserved it," the second pirate told her. "It broke the lock."

"Really? How did it manage that?"

"Probably with its hands." Different paws that seemed somewhat delicate touched the Doctor's hands, inspecting them. "It has damaged its fingers, great and it is going to get bruises from your manhandling."

"Vorg-handling," one of the pirates told her.

"Whatever, well get it up on the table," she ordered.

The Doctor winced as Vorg picked him up. Upright and facing the pirates, the Doctor saw the girl. As one of the others undid his cuffs the Doctor noted that she was smaller than the others. Her fur was paler and her eyes were a lovely shade of pink. Unlike the other pirates who wore black uniforms she wore a white lab coat. The Doctor sighed as he knew where things were headed. Vorg deposited the Doctor onto a metal table and the Doctor's heart raced a little faster. The pirates quickly cuffed the Doctor to the table as Vorg held him in place. The cuffs were at his ankles, wrists and throat and the Doctor was fully secured.

"Anything else you need us to do?"

"No, you're good, for now. Just make sure you replace that cage and lock."

"Yeurrgh," they grumbled as they left the room.

"You don't have to do this," the Doctor told her as she pulled equipment and scanners out.

"I do, actually I do. I can't believe we actually caught a Time Lord. Nearly extinct species are worth loads. I'm going to get as much as I can from you before we make the trade. Do you have any idea how much I can get just one of your cells?"

The Doctor gritted his teeth as she set a scanner running. He could feel it cataloging everything and he hated it. "Ah," he gasped when something cold and sharp pricked a vein in his arm. He looked down and saw as the girl pirate stick him with a needle connected to a tube and bag. He shivered as she stole his blood. While his blood drained away the girl pirate delicately unbuttoned his shirt. The Doctor tensed at the sudden invasion.

"What are you doing?"

"I told you, I'm collecting as much of you as I can, we don't have much time and I am going to make a killing off of these."

She opened his shirt once she finished unbuttoning it. She pulled out a med scanner and scanned his chest. She checked it once more before setting it down and cleaning the right side of his chest, just below his lungs. The Doctor gulped audibly as he dully realized what was about to happen.

"Please, don't do this," he begged her as he saw her pick up a thin, but long, needle. "You'll regret it!"

The needle hovered right over his liver as she contemplated his words, "You're going to make me rich."

"What will actually happen is that if the wrong people find out what you've taken from me, they will not pay you. They will find you, kill you and take everything. They might torture you first, to find out why you didn't hand me over to them or to find out where I was sold off to. This is a mistake!"

"Hmm," she actually seemed to consider his words, but before the Doctor could speak a sharp streak of agony bit into his side.

"AH!" he cried as the needle pushed in between his ribs and pierced his liver. His whole body tensed and he yelled again when the needle withdrew. He found himself panting as the girl pirate moved out of his line of vision to preserve the biopsy. He turned his head away from her general direction as tears threatened.

"Gah," he panted as his vision swam and his head spun. He moved his head carefully to look down at his arm. The girl pirate had quickly swapped out a full bag of his blood with another empty one.

"No!" he suddenly cried as another explosion racked his ship. The Cloister Bell tolled in his head, making it all the more difficult to keep his composure.

"A lot of activity going on in there." The girl pirate poked the side of the Doctor's head. He turned his head ever so slightly to look at her. "What does that part of your brain control anyway?" The Doctor only glared at her as he panted to keep up with everything.

"C'mon, you can tell me," she told him as she taped a small bandage over the biopsy wound on his side.

He remained silent and she shrugged. She stepped out of the room, but the Doctor could hear her.

"I need some more Vorg-handling." The Doctor heard her say.

"Ooh, playtime," Vorg responded.

They both came back in.

"I need it laying on its side," she explained to Vorg as they approached the Doctor. She uncuffed his neck and arms and legs. Vorg very quickly pulled the Doctor onto his side. He moaned as it hurt his side. He couldn't move much as Vorg pressed his arm against his side and held his legs still.

"Please, stop, you're taking too much," the Doctor told her. He was lightheaded and dizzy. This time the girl pirate didn't respond to him. He shuddered as she lifted up the back of his shirt. He Doctor yelled and arched his back as he tried to get away from the needle piercing his right kidney. But Vorg held him in place. He was still panting in pain after she covered up the biopsy site.

"I need you to pull its legs up to his chest," the girl pirate ordered. The Doctor groaned as Vorg obeyed. He was completely limp now. His head was thundering with the screams from the Tardis and from blood loss. His back hurt, his side hurt. He was getting quite the collection of bruises.

"AHHHHHHHHHAAAAARGH!" he screamed when another needle was shoved in between his lower vertebrae. His vision turned to darkness as he passed out.

The Doctor woke up to the sound of someone screaming in agony. It took him a few seconds to realize it was him. The pain was sharp and it seemed to drag on for an eternity. Fire shot through his pelvis. Even when the girl pirate moved away with a sampling of his bone marrow. His hip still stung. Tears ran down his cheeks as she bandaged him up. He yelped when Vorg laid him onto his back and the cuffs were placed back onto his wrists. Every breath the Doctor took aggravated the unexpected biopsies.

"So, tell me what this controls then?" she asked him, poking at the right side of his head. The Doctor glared up and firmly closed his mouth. She moved over to his right side and pushed a claw over the entry site for the bone marrow biopsy. The Doctor choked and gagged. "Tell me what it controls."

"No!" he cried.

"Tell me." She pushed again, making the Doctor arch his back, which hurt the spinal tap wound. The Doctor whimpered, he was just about to give in when more pain exploded in his head. He saw her. He saw Clara. She was panting. Her clothes were stained with blood. She was in the garden room in the Tardis. She was surrounded by pirates and then she was gone. The vision went completely black. The Cloister bell stopped its tolling and the screams from the Tardis abruptly stopped. It was like their connection was a string. He held one end and the Tardis held the other. It was like the Tardis end had been cut. Or maybe a door slammed closed on her end. The Doctor shuddered. He called for her in his head, but she didn't answer, couldn't answer. She was gone.

* * *

Clara made it easily to the control room once she had on her disguise. None of the other pirates seemed to notice her at all. Under the helmet, Clara cringed. The console was in several pieces and the time rotor glowed mauve. Clara made it to the doors. They were pulled back by little wires and grappling hooks. If she could just pry them free, then the doors would close and then maybe they could get the upper hand in things. She glanced at the three technician pirates who fiddled with the console. They'd probably notice if she messed with the doors. As discretely as she could she slipped back out of the control room and into a nearby closet.

She took off her stolen helmet and pulled out the monitor she carried with her. She quickly found the Tardis Interface running through one of the gymnasiums.

"The doors are still open."

Clara jumped and her hand flew to her mouth to stop herself from screaming. The monitor fell down onto the floor. In front of Clara was Clara. Clara looked down at the monitor, it didn't seem to be damaged and she could see the Tardis Interface Clara still running from the pirates. Clara looked back up at herself again.

"I am able to project more than one image of myself," the Tardis Interface explained.

"Oh, of course."

"The doors are still open."

"Yes, I know. But there are pirates in the control room and guards outside the doors. What if they stop me before I close the doors?"

"I will run out of energy. You will be caught," the Tardis Interface stated.

"So maybe my plan has some holes in it. What should we do instead...? I have one of their weapons, but I really don't want to kill anybody. Is there a stun setting?"

"Yes."

"But even if I do stun them, there are the guards outside. Maybe we could relocate somewhere. That way we didn't worry about more pirates getting in. You can fly without closing the doors, right?"

"It is possible, however dangerous."

"And you could relocate some place safe? Just until we got the pirates out and you re-energized. Then we could come back and save the Doctor...I could try and go and rescue him, but he was unconscious when they took him. And I can't carry him."

"Coordinate settings are offline," the Tardis Interface informed Clara.

"So maybe leaving isn't such a good-" Clara stopped and set the monitor and her helmet down. Something brown had caught her eye from across the room. She giggled as she retrieved it. "Vortex manipulator." She showed it to the Interface. "Where could we go to help you? And find help for the Doctor?"

The Tardis Interface pointed to the monitor and when Clara looked she saw space time coordinates and a location on a map.

"That could work. What about you, can you get us there? With your doors open, without the Doctor. You can recuperate while I get help for the Doctor."

"Coordinate settings are offline."

"Well then maybe we could wire this in?" Clara asked as she held up the vortex manipulator. "I can enter the coordinates in here," she spoke as she entered the correct numbers into the Vortex manipulator. "How do I hook it up to the Tardis? And what else would you need?"

"Release the handbrake and place the green and yellow wires here," the Tardis Interface explained while demonstrating on the monitor.

"Okay, I can do that. Anything else?"

"Yes, hang on tight."

Clara sneaked back into the control room with her helmet back on. The three pirates ignored her as she put the correct wires into the last remaining port on the console. Very quickly she released the handbrake. And like a switch being flipped on the Tardis wheezed and shook. Clara locked her arms around a railing as the Tardis began to materialize. The room shook and the pirates shouted out in alarm. One of them tumbled right out of the still open doors. He disintegrated as the view became the time vortex. The Tardis turned and tumbled and bounced around. The second pirate lost his grip and ended up on the ceiling and then hit the floor with a heavy thud as the Tardis came to an abrupt stop.

Clara had her eyes shut tight as her head was still spinning dizzily. She heard the third pirate try to rouse the second and when he spoke to her, she ignored him. Eventually she heard him shuffle away. She carefully opened her eyes. The control room had gone dark and the third pirate stepped out of the Tardis. Clara jumped up when she heard gunshots and she shuffled backwards when she saw a tall figure step into the Tardis.

The figure raised up a pistol and pointed it straight at her, "Who the hell are you and where is the Doctor?" the American accented man demanded.

Clara put her hands up. "Don't hurt me, please."

"Where's the Doctor?" He stepped closer to her, "What have you done to him, Badger Pirate?"

Clara remembered her helmet, "Take off my helmet and I'll explain everything."

The man looked at her with suspicion. "You do it."

She very slowly obeyed. The man lowered his pistol when he saw her face, "You're human."

"My name is Clara, I travel with the Doctor. Are you Captain Jack Harkness?"

"He's mentioned me then?" He held out his hand to help her out and she took it and stood.

"Not the Doctor, head of UNIT said that was yours." Clara pointed to the vortex manipulator that was still attached to the console.

Jack looked at it strangely. "That can't be right," he said as he held up the one on his wrist.

Clara looked at him with a puzzled expression, "What year is it?"

"2009," Jack told her.

"Okay, so that one is from the future. I got it in 2013, which is when I'm from. Hi."

"Okay, hi." Jack looked around the Tardis, noting its silvery blueness, rather than the steam punk bronze color.

"What the-"

Both Clara and Jack turned to see the second badger pirate moving to try and get up. Jack quickly disarmed it and hand cuffed it.

"What happened, where's the Doctor?" Jack asked Clara.

"The Tardis is breached."

"What?" Jack looked up as the Doctor's tenth incarnation suddenly appeared next to Clara.

"That's the Tardis Interface," Clara explained. "We've actually got about thirty more pirates still running around in the corridors. Chasing me, well decoy me." Clara turned to the Tardis Interface, "Why can't you look like that when helping me?"

The Tardis Interface didn't look at Clara.

"Thirty?" Jack asked.

"Twenty-four," the Interface corrected.

"I was close," Clara whined.

"You were incorrect."

"See what I have to put up with?"

"Okay." Jack straightened up. "I'll deal with this. Gwen!" he shouted towards the doors. Gwen Cooper slowly entered the Tardis.

"Blimey," she muttered as she looked around. "Hello, Doctor." She smiled at the Interface.

"Don't bother, it's just the Tardis Interface," Clara grumbled and glared at the Interface.

"Oh, I see." Even though Gwen didn't. "And you are?" she asked Clara.

"Clara Oswald."

"Right, what are we dealing with, Jack?"

"I've got twenty-four hostiles to deal with. I need you to get this guy down to the cells. And I need Yan to go get the sleeper bombs. We're going to have a whole patrol of badger pirates take temporary residency in our cells tonight."

"Did you just say badger pirates?"

Jack pulled off the helmet of the third pirate to make his point.

"Okay that's new. Right. Up you get."

"You'll pay for this," the pirate spat as Gwen marched him out of the Tardis.

"Oh you know English, that will help."

Ianto came in with a case of sleeper bombs. "Ah Doctor, good to see you again."

"Tardis Interface," Clara said again as she rolled her eyes.

"So not the Doctor?"

"I am the Tardis Voice Interface," the Interface explained.

"Okay, that's weird. And uh, hello to you too," Ianto added as he reached out to shake Clara's hand.

"Clara Oswald, Ianto Jones, Ianto Jones, Clara Oswald," Jack answered as he prepared to go into the depths of the Tardis. "Right, anything else I need to know before I deal with a patrol of badger pirates?" Jack asked Clara.

"Um they're chasing another hologram of me around?"

"I got that. I assume all of their weapons are like this one?" He pointed to the one he took from the pirate Gwen took away.

"Yes, oh and there is one knocked out in my room. I had to steal his outfit." Clara pointed to her costume. "And this will help." Clara pulled out the portable monitor. It had all the views of where the badger pirates were located. Some of them seemed to be already unconscious as they had been knocked around when the Tardis dematerialized.

"Okay. You guys stay up here. I don't want to have to go looking for you lot if you decide to go wandering. I take it the pirates did that to the console?"

Clara nodded.

"They'll pay for messing with the Tardis...Alright I'll be back in a few minutes, I'll need help relocating them to the cells. You two stay here." Jack then opened the door and began his journey into the center of the Tardis.

"So, can I get you a tea or something?" Ianto asked Clara.

"That would be great, but first I need to do this." Clara went to the doors and started removing the hooks.

"That's how they got in?" Ianto asked as he moved to help her with the task.

Clara nodded and pulled out the Sonic to speed up their efforts.


	4. The Foghorn

_Author's Note: This chapter is extremely violent and a bit gory, just as a general warning._

* * *

"When will it wake up!?" the demand alone was at a reasonable level of volume. However, to the Doctor's ears it was like a foghorn.

"It is coming around now," replied a quiet petite voice laced in fear.

The Doctor groaned as he began to wake up. A foreign chemical swam up and down his veins as it left a burning trail of pain. The Doctor slowly opened his eyes. His head rested painfully against his chest, something was wrong. Everything swam as he cautiously lifted up his head. It didn't do him much good as the dizziness made him nauseous. His disorientated mind finally realized that he was upright, rather than lying flat on a metal table. Worse, the Doctor tugged on his arms as they were pulled up above his head, chained to the wall. He let out a shaky breath as he found himself surrounded by six badger pirates with him as the center of attention. The pirate in the middle seemed older and more fierce than the others. He didn't wear the same black jumpsuits as the other pirates did. His coat was long and navy blue with bits of blue-veined gold and platinum stuck to it. Beneath that he wore a black shirt and pants with several hand pulsar guns. Next to him on the left was a similarly clad pirate, only his navy blue jacket lacked the jewelry. Next to him was the girl pirate from before who had stolen blood samples from the Doctor. He could see her subtly shivering form. On the other side of the boss pirate stood two guards, they wore the basic black jumpsuits, like the ones who had taken him to the girl pirate.

"Yah got me," the Doctor told them, letting his head rest onto his right arm. It seemed like too much effort to hold it up. His shoulders and wrists protested with stiff achy pains. The Doctor slowly managed to get his legs working. When he stood up he couldn't help the gasp of relief he felt in his shoulders and wrists. They'd hung him up nearly an hour ago. Which wasn't too bad, he had been left in similar positions for days before he finally found a way to free himself.

"Nettie, your services are no longer needed," the older and obvious captain told the girl pirate. Nettie stood there unsure for a moment, as if guilt were riding her senses over what she had done to the Doctor. At least that's what the Doctor hoped.

"Nettie you are dismissed!" shouted the older pirate. He threw Nettie a threateningly glare that made her squeak in fear. She quickly picked up her medical kit and swiftly ran out of the room. The Doctor watched the older pirate with critical eyes. There was something familiar about him, but the Doctor just couldn't place it. He caught the slight nod from the obvious leader towards one of the guards.

The Doctor braced himself as the guard threw a punch into his stomach. The Doctor grimaced and tried to bend over to protect himself. His hands were chained above his head, he couldn't protect himself. The Doctor coughed and struggled to get back to his feet. But the guard hit him again in the gut. The Doctor twisted to try and get away, but the wall behind him and his chained wrists made it impossible. The guard landed a punch over the biopsy wound on his right side. The entry wound had healed but that side was still sensitive. The Doctor cried out. He couldn't get away. A fourth and fifth punch to his face left him dazed and with a small cut above his left eye trickled blood down his face. The guard pulled his arm back, but before he could attack again the boss pirate stopped him and called the guard back into line. The Doctor was left panting, it wasn't too bad, he'd had worse. The biopsy sites groaned in protest as he got his feet back underneath. This time the Boss Pirate approached him.

"Are you ready to talk?" the Boss Pirate asked.

"Y'know I was ready to talk before the beating," the Doctor answered.

"Where is it?"

"Where's what?"

The Boss pirate looked to the other guard.

"No, don't do that," the Doctor whined as the second guard approached with an electrical prod.

"Tell me where it is," the Boss Pirate repeated.

"I don't know what you are talking about!" the Doctor shouted as the prod wielding guard approached him. "GAAAH!" he shouted as it struck as the guard thrust the prod into his chest. The electricity setting was higher than the last time and the electricity sent his head back in a spasm, crashing him into the solid wall behind him. After a full minute of agony the prod was pulled away. The Doctor went limp, except for his still spasming muscles that were out of his control. The Doctor's head hung dangling over his chest. His blurry vision slowly focused on the scarlet liquid drops that pooled beneath him. He dully realized that he tasted metallic rust in his mouth. He winced as he discovered his cheek was sore from where he had unintentionally bit it.

"You will tell me or I'll have Vurgrad up the setting," the Boss Pirate told him. Vurgrad, the one holding the prod smiled cruelly.

"There is no...need for this," the Doctor muttered and winced as he tried to lift his head.

"No there is not, all you have to do is tell me where it has gone. You don't have to suffer," the Boss Pirate replied.

The Doctor groaned as he rolled his head to the side and slowly lifted up. "The problem is that your question is so non-specific, I literally don't know what 'it' is. I can give you the exact location of the lost Moon of Poosh, or if you are looking for Atlantis, that one is a little bit more tricky."

"He wants it," Vurgrad spoke quietly as he raised the prod.

"Back off," the Boss Pirate ordered before he could strike the Doctor again. Disappointed, Vurgrad retreated.

This time the Boss Pirate approached the Doctor. He nodded to his second in command, the one in the undercoated navy blue coat. He came forward with a hand held screen. The Boss Pirate took it and showed it to the Doctor. The Doctor had to focus as his eye lids wanted to close. It took him a moment to realize he was looking at an outside view of his Tardis, with the doors forced open. The video had audio and the Doctor heard a shout and then the sound of the Tardis engines. It was painful to listen to, he could here her engines grind and moan in agony as she attempted to take off. The Doctor smiled and laughed. The Tardis dematerialized. The video clip ended and the Doctor continued to laugh.

"You lost her," he continued to laugh, "You think I had something do with it."

"Tell us where it is!"

"Oh stop it, you broken record. How could I have anything to do with moving it, the whole time I was strapped to a table. But something you should know about that blue box. She has a mind of her own. She didn't like you running a muck in her body and she left. Simple as that. I don't know where she went, but I promise you. She isn't coming back here."

The second in command suddenly lashed out, grabbing the Doctor's throat. The Doctor winced as the second in command's claws dug into his flesh. "You must bring it back!" the second in command shouted.

The Doctor shut his eyes closed as the second in command continued to squeeze. His complicated inner structure of his throat made it impossible for him to be strangled, but the badger pirate's claws sunk deeper into his neck, drawing blood. Suddenly the clawed hand disappeared, giving the Doctor some relief. He opened his eyes to see the Boss Pirate pull the second in command's paw away from the Doctor. The Boss Pirate didn't say anything, the second in command took a couple steps back.

"Twenty-six of my pirates have been hijacked," the Boss Pirate admitted to the Doctor.

"I would feel a little bit more sympathy if I hadn't been strung up and tortured. You lured me here with a Mauve alert and three children. You attack me and my ship and now she is safe from you."

"I want my pirates back."

"I want you to release me. If you release me, I will return your them to you."

The second in command shook his head. "It is a trick."

"No, it is your only option."

The Boss Pirate turned away from the Doctor and spoke to the 2nd (second in command), "No permanent damages, we can still make a killing off of it. But see what you can do to make it talk before we reach the rendezvous point."

"Yes sir."

"Use Nettie, if necessary."

"Understood."

The Doctor groaned as the two talked quietly, "What part of I don't know where she went do you not understand?"

The Boss Pirate turned back, "I want my pirates back. If they are lost forever, then this is a well deserved punishment."

"You lured me here! Did you think you could just get away with it, without sacrifice? And what about those Human children? What did they do to deserve such treatment?! Ereid has a broken leg! They need to be looked after!" The Boss Pirate didn't respond to the Doctor, he only nodded to the 2nd and left the room, silently.

"Come back here! I'm not done with you!"

"The small humans have nothing to do with you," the 2nd told the Doctor.

"Actually they do, you used them to get to me. Obviously against their will."

The 2nd nodded, "They are useful tools we have gotten good salvages from their assistance. It is hard for humans to resist an injured child. Even if it isn't one of their own young."

The Doctor's expression immediately darkened, "You broke his leg as a part of the act."

The 2nd shrugged, "A human child's bones are fragile things."

The Doctor jerked himself forward in an attempt to attack the pirate. But the chains stopped him from getting his hands free and wrapping them around the pirates neck. The 2nd laughed and pulled from his belt loop a wicked looking dagger with a serrated edge.

"The children are not your concern. The only thing you should be worrying about, is how you are going to bring back my pirates."

"The only way is by letting me go."

"And we both know that isn't going to happen."

The 2nd ripped open the Doctor's shirt sending buttons clattering onto the floor. He drew a long horizontal line with the knife across the Doctor's chest. It quickly began to bleed and drip down his chest. The Doctor clenched his teeth as more of his blood drained away from him. Nettie had already secured a liter of his blood. He could easily survive and replenish himself. But from the blood lust in the 2nd's eyes there was a chance of him bleeding to death.

"When you decide to order your ship back, the pain will stop."

He cut another line down the center of the Doctor's chest like an amateur vivisection lines. The Doctor wanted to try to move away, but he was pressed against the wall. He worried that if he moved too much the 2nd would accidentally stab a vital organ, like his hearts. He couldn't risk it. The Doctor's breath came out in short shallow breaths when the 2nd used the knife to flay his skin. He pulled back his flesh and exposed the Doctor's scarlet muscles beneath. The Doctor restored to using his respiratory bypass, just to avoid the movement of his lungs and cause additional pain.

The 2nd let the great flaps of his skin dangle as he pulled off his black gloves and touched the shiny wet muscle he so crudely exposed. The Doctor let out a pained gasp. He was headed towards the edge of his blood loss limit. His trousers were soaked in his blood and scarlet puddles littered the white floor beneath him. He let out a whined whimper as the 2nd's claw caught a piece of muscle. The 2nd suddenly tore it away. The Doctor's back arched as white flashed before his eyes. The drugs that Nettie gave him earlier were still in his system and it forced his consciousness to the surface. He couldn't pass out, not even to escape the torture. He rested his head against his arm as his vision remained blurry with the pain and blood loss.

"What are you doing?"

The Doctor slowly lifted his head just as the 2nd turned around. Nettie had returned.

"Just peeking at its inner working, it looks different than the humans."

"It isn't human! If you want to have a look we can do it in my lab, where we can keep it stable. Like that you could easily kill it."

"Who said you could come back in here anyway? You are four ranks below me, get out!"

"Captain Coledartur sent me, in case it needs to be stabilized. He said no permanent injury and to keep it alive. He charged me with that duty."

"I'll make sure it stays alive. Go back to your lab, you already had your turn."

"You idiot!"

The 2nd stepped away from the Doctor. "How dare you? I could have you locked away in an instant!"

"You're missing the point, this is about keeping it," Nettie pointed to the Doctor, "in good condition so that we can get a good price off of it. You are just way too interested in your sadistic games."

The 2nd sighed after he thought about it for a moment. "Fine, have it your way." He backed a further five feet away and licked the Doctor's blood from his claws. Nettie stepped forward to the injured Time Lord.

"Thank you," the Doctor whispered.

"I'm not doing this for you," Nettie scoffed.

"I know."

Nettie paused and looked at the alien. He was pale and shivering. He struggled to breathe properly. He suffered from extreme blood loss, partially her fault. Nettie shook herself and went back to work. She put an antibacterial spray over the exposed muscles before drawing up the flaps of his skin back into place. It hurt him and he choked on his own breath as he tried to stifle a pain filled scream. Nettie pulled out her own tissue knitter and sealed the devastating lacerations. The Doctor sighed in relief, it still hurt, but he couldn't lose anymore blood.

"Thank you," the Doctor repeated.

Nettie didn't respond to him. She looked away and walked back to the 2nd. She held a syringe with cream colored liquid.

"What's that?" the 2nd asked.

"The reason you should let me help more often. Inject it into a vein in his arm."

"No, don't," the Doctor whined. He wanted to pass out, was on the edge of passing out. He couldn't and he wasn't sure if his body could handle anymore unknown chemicals.

The 2nd gave Nettie a cynical stare before he took the syringe and pumped it into the Doctor's veins. Only then did he ask, "What does it do?"

"You'll see," Nettie replied as the Doctor began to squirm.


	5. The Teacher and the Captain

"Where is Jack?" Gwen asked. She came right into the Tardis and then took a couple of cautious steps around broken pieces of the Tardis console. She looked around the interior of the box. After all the alien stuff she'd seen, this box was amazing.

"I'm here," Jack answered before Clara answered, 'catching badgers'. The three turned to see Jack towing in two unconscious pirates with blood smeared up and down his arms.

"Are you okay?!" Ianto ran forward to check on him, but Jack waved him away and deposited a pirate into his arms.

"I'm fine, take these down to the cells."

"There are more of them?" Gwen asked.

"Twenty-two more to go. I got them with the sleeper bombs, they should be out for a couple of hours. It is going to be cramped in there so put them in two at a time. Make sure you remove their gloves, boots, helmet and whatever else you find on them."

Gwen and Ianto nodded and obeyed.

"What about these hooks? We got to close the doors," Clara told Jack.

"Yes, that is probably a priority, but before you do anything else you are going to tell me what the hell happened. How twenty-four badgers managed to get onto the Tardis. Where is the Doctor, why isn't he here? And why is the Tardis like this? A couple of months ago it was bronze and it didn't have the St. John's stamp on the outside."

Clara hesitated, even though she was tired she wouldn't allow herself to be sloppy. "I'm traveling with a future Doctor and I assume you haven't met him yet."

"What?"

"That answers your Tardis questions. You're a friend with the Doctor, so you must know about the complications of time travel, if I say the wrong thing I could blow a whole in the universe. I don't want to risk it, so obviously I can't tell you everything. What you need to know is that the Doctor was lured into a trap by the badger pirates. I don't know what they're doing to him, or if he has managed to escape. The Tardis thinks he's in danger, enough to suggest we come to you for help."

"If what you say is true..."

"It is."

"Then I guess I should be flattered that the Tardis thinks so highly of me."

"Will you help?"

"The Doctor is in danger and a maiden in distress, how could I resist?" Jack smiled cheekily at her.

Clara seemed a little confused, she didn't know if she should be insulted or not. Jack saved her the trouble of settling on an emotion by a frown replacing his cheeky smile.

"Badger Pirates are bad news. They hate humans and anyone who resembles a human. They're greedy and always sell to the highest bidder. They haven't got any mercy nor honor and love easy money. Hopefully they're stupid enough to not realize what a find the Doc really is. He should be safe for the time being and it'll be easy to track them. But that's not the problem."

"What's the problem?"

"How are we going to get to Pirate space in the 42nd century from here?"

"Vortex manipulator," Clara said immediately.

"What this one?" Jack picked up his future one still partially attached to console. It was burnt to a blackened lump.

"What about yours?" Clara pointed to the one wrapped around his wrist.

Jack gave a sad smile. "Mine is broken."

"In the future it is just deactivated, not broken."

"Well the Doctor deactivated it. It might as well be broken."

Clara smiled, a mirrored smile to Jack's earlier cheeky expression, "Call me impossible."

"What?"

"Do it, call me impossible."

"Why?"

"Never mind, let me see." Clara pulled his wrist close so that she interact with it. When it bleeped to announce that it was ready for manipulating the time vortex all Jack could do was stare.

"You're impossible."

"I told you."

Jack shook his head, "Right so we're ready to save the Doctor."

"You forgot about the hooks and the pirates."

Jack nodded over to Gwen and Ianto. Clara had been so focused on her conversation with Jack that she hadn't noticed Gwen and Ianto continuing the work of removing pirates from the Tardis. They dropped the badgers they were carrying and came over to Jack.

"Right, Clara and I are going to rescue the Doc. You guys stay here, keep an eye on the rift, deal with the pirates and remove the rest of the hooks. As soon as you're done I expect the Tardis to go on lock down, at least until we get the Doctor back."

"And you are coming back?" Ianto double checked.

"Yeah, with the Doctor, don't worry he can't take me far without his Tardis, and we'll definitely be back to retrieve her-," Jack suddenly stopped and pulled out a ringing mobile, he held up a finger to his team as he answered the phone, "Sorry, it's important," he told Clara.

"Hello! Yes, no, not here at the moment, soon. Might as well but I might not. Right."

"What?" Clara asked.

"Another member of our team, she might be here when we get back. Right, just one more thing before we go." Jack attacked a badger pirate and stole a datapack off of him. He scanned it with his reactivated vortex manipulator, "I've locked onto their ship, lets hope we get there before they sell him. Ready?" he asked Clara as he held out his arm.

"Ready," Clara replied as she gripped his vortex manipulator.

Ianto's shout of, "Be careful". Was the last thing Jack and Clara heard before reality warped around them. Everything blurred and burned and the universe's emotions spun around them. Trapped between eternity and a nanosecond the world came to a halt. It changed from the wrecked console room of the Tardis to a brightly lit corridor. Clara leaned against the wall to keep herself up right and Jack groaned as he tried to get his footing.

"Shhh!" Clara told him, she could here footsteps coming closer. She quickly grabbed his arm and pulled him into a dark cupboard. It was cramped and Clara gave a startled yelp as her body pressed against something mushy and flesh-like.

"You shush!" Jack whispered from in front of her.

"Get off! Please!" a small strained voice whispered. Clara pulled out the sonic quickly turning it to 'torch' mode. Jack turned as well to see Hasshim blinking in the light.

"Who are-" Jack started.

"Hasshim?" Clara tried to give the boy some room, but it was difficult in the small cupboard.

"Please don't tell them I'm here," Hasshim whispered.

"You're hiding from them," Clara whispered, "Oh."

"Oh? Oh, what? What's going on?" Jack demanded.

"It was his older sister that sent the Mauve distress call," Clara directed her next words directly to Hasshim, "They made you do it, just to lure us out, long enough to figure out we were worth something. But the Doctor shouldn't have come up as worth anything."

"Clara," Jack growled, "I'm not following, you need to slow down and explain. You really have been around the Doc, you sound like him."

"The Doctor has been deleting himself from databases and history."

"What? Why?"

"He never really did elaborate. He just said that people shouldn't just instantly recognize him."

"I heard them...They said that and they put out a description of his physiology."

"Is he still here?" Clara quickly asked.

"Um, I don't know, the traders are on board now," Hasshim told her.

Clara looked up at Jack, "We gotta get him now."

"We don't want to go in guns a blazing, I'm the only one who will come back from a suicide mission and god knows the Doc hates when I do that. We have to be sensible."

"I should have brought my badger pirate helmet," Clara muttered, looking down at the rest of her pirate gear."

"I'll help you, as long as you promise to take me with you!" Hasshim told them.

"We can't." Jack shook his head.

"Jack!"

"Look, the vortex manipulator is a dangerous way to travel as it is and where we are going, I can't guarantee your safety, she can't either," Jack told Hasshim and nodding to Clara.

"But we can't just leave him and his family. There's also Ereid, he's seven and has a broken leg and Raksha, we got to help them too."

"They aren't really my brother and sister," Hasshim told them, "They were here when I got here. Raksha is the pirates' pet, Ereid's her pet and I guess I'm Ereid's...That's weird. Raksha has been here for like twelve years, I think. They've completely brainwashed her. Except that she tries to rescue human kids. Ereid is like her baby or something, apparently they took him from his family when he was a baby."

"How did he break his leg?" Clara asked suddenly realizing that it probably didn't happen when the ship was attacked.

"Zeiron did it."

"Who is Zeiron?" 

"He's the second in command."

Clara turned back to Jack in the squashed cupboard, "We can't leave them here. I know how important it is to get to the Doctor, but he'd never forgive us if we just abandoned these kids. Never."

Jack growled with indecision and bowed his head, "You're right. But what are we going to do with them?"

"Can't we take them back to your place?"

"That's a bad idea."

"Why?"

"The hub is no place for children, plus they're from the 42nd century, it's a really bad idea."

"Do you have anything better?"

"Maybe..." he sighed.

"What?"

"Okay lets get them to the hub, Gwen can sort something else, I'm sure Martha will be of some help as well."

"Who is Martha?"

"A friend and a friend of the Doctor's."

"Okay," Clara looked back at Hasshim, "where is Raksha and Ereid? We're going to get you out of here."

Hasshim shook his head, "We don't need them."

"That's a bit harsh," Jack replied.

"I told you, Raksha was brainwashed. She thinks this is her home and she won't do anything to go against the pirates," Hasshim told them.

Jack gave Clara a look, but Clara looked back at Hasshim, "Well if she doesn't want to go with us, then that is her choice, but we gotta let her make it and give her the option. Can you take us to her and Ereid?"

Hasshim looked scared, no, terrified, but he nodded. Jack put his ear up to the door, the foot steps were long gone and he carefully opened the door and stepped out. Hasshim grabbed Clara's hand tightly, but decidedly led them down the twisting corridors. A few times they saw pirates and they quickly hid in unused rooms. It took them what seemed an eternity before they reached their destination. Hasshim put in a code and the door opened.

There were blankets piled up on the floor of the small room. On top of the blankets and leaning against the wall sat Raksha. She carefully held Ereid in her arms. He was covered in sweat and shivered, though he seemed to be asleep. Raksha looked up in fear until she saw Hasshim it turned quickly to rage which defused back to fear when Clara and Jack followed him in.

"What are you doing? How? Hasshim!" She glared at him, "What have you done?"

"They promised to take me somewhere safe. And I'm going with them," Hasshim told her.

"Good riddance! Did you just come back to gloat?"

Hasshim shook his head.

"We came back for you and Ereid, we can get him real help."

Raksha shook her head, "We'll never be safe, this is as safe as it gets."

"Rachel?" Jack whispered.

Clara turned to see recognition and disbelief twisted across Jack's face.

"No!" Raksha gasped, her face turned white.

"Rachel Marionette Turndale."

Jack stepped towards her. Raksha tried to push herself further back, but she was trapped, the wall was already behind her. She unintentionally jostled Ereid and he whimpered. Raksha froze, her attention split between the threatening approach of Jack and Ereid's pain. She gave up, bowed her head over Ereid and cried.

Jack stopped and crouched before her, "Rachel, I know who you are.

Raksha shuddered, but slowly looked up, "How? I'm out of time."

"You're mother was a friend of mine."

Raksha's voice shook, "From the time agency?"

Jack nodded. "What happened to you? How did you get out here?"

"The Captain," Raksha told him, "Hart, he took me and sold me to the pirates twelve years ago."

Jack froze, closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, so sorry."

"Are you going to take me back to my Mom?"

Jack opened his mouth, then closed it and then finally he whispered, "Yes. I will. Soon as soon as we can. But first we have to leave here. I have a safe place you, Ereid and Hasshim can stay for a while until everything is sorted."

"Are you going to help the Doctor too?" she asked.

"Yes, he's what we have to sort before I can take you home."

"I'll do whatever you want as long as you promise to help Ereid," she told him.

Jack nodded and then went straight to work on stabilizing Ereid's leg, as he worked he spoke, "It is very dangerous taking this many using a vortex manipulator, but we don't really have a choice. So there is a good chance that it will make you, Ereid and Hasshim sick, I'm sorry, but like I said we don't have any other choice." Jack looked up at Clara, indecision reigned.

"I'll stay here and figure out where the Doctor is. You take them, it'll be easier without me," Clara told him.

Jack nodded, "I'll carry Ereid," he carefully lifted the boy up. Ereid cried, but remained limp.

"Ereid, it's going to be okay," Raksha soothed. "Hold his neck and hold on tight, he's here to help us." Ereid slowly obeyed.

"Raksha, Hasshim you hold onto my wrist and don't let go for anything," Jack ordered.

Raksha and Hasshim obeyed. With some difficulty Jack activated the vortex manipulator. Clara watched as reality and time warped around them and they disappeared.

Clara went right to work. One of the empty rooms they had hidden in held pirate gear and she stocked up. She put the helmet over her head and smiled, she was free to walk about without any suspicious. She activated a datapack and wired it into the monitor she had from the Tardis. With the help of the Sonic she was able to hack into the coms and surveillance system. It took her under five minutes to locate the Doctor. She quickly memorized the route, shoved the devices into a black pack, again stolen from the pirate gear room and went straight to the Doctor.

She had to stop, she froze, her blood ran cold. She could hear crying. She could hear the Doctor crying. Then she saw him surrounded by pirates, they drag him down the hall. He muttered, 'pleases' and 'don'ts' but nobody listened. The whole corridor was filled with pirates and the large alien followed behind. Clara inserted herself into the crowd. She shifted and followed until she was only two pirates behind the Doctor. The Pirate crowd dispersed leaving only five pirates, and Clara positioned before a door. The door opened and they went in. Laughter and giggles assaulted Clara's ears. The doors closed, with Clara, the five pirates, the giant alien and of course the Doctor being dragged between two pirates.

"Is this him?" an innocent voice asked.

Clara's eyes widened to see a little humanoid girl. She looked to be eight or nine. She had pale skin and a black mass of short black curly hair that seemed to defy gravity. Her shining pink eyes locked onto the Doctor's still form. As soon as they had stopped dragging him he settled down into a limp exhausted form. The girl jumped forward and ran over to the Doctor. She held out a six fingered hand and gently touched his cheek with a finger.

The Doctor jerked back as if had been electrocuted. He screamed in utter agony. Clara nearly ran to his side, but stopped herself. If only she had her own vortex manipulator, then she could risk it, but she couldn't on her own. The girl pulled her hand back and turned to another badger pirate who did not wear a helmet or the regular black suits.

"Captain Coledartur? What's wrong with him?" the girl asked.

Captain Coledartur turned to look at one of the younger pirates whom also did not wear the usual pirate outfit.

"It is a simple sensory enhancing drug," the girl pirate explained, "It will wear off in an hour or so."

The girl smiled, "So to enhance one's telepathic abilities and then come into contact with me must be agony." She turned back to the Doctor who was once more limp. She savagely reached out and grabbed the Doctor's face. He tried to jerk free from her grasp. But the girl held him tightly. He screamed and thrashed, but the pirates held him in place as the girl pressed her head to his.

"No!" the Doctor screamed before turning once more into jelly.

The girl released him, that cruel smile still on her face. She turned back to the Capatian. "Well done, he is an excellent prize in deed. Fifty million credits as promised, Havar?" She snapped her fingers and a man(Havar) suddenly moved towards the Captain.

Clara shook her head. She hadn't noticed him before. His skin was black like coal with thin lines of sea green splattered on his face. He lifted up a case and presented it to the Captain. When Havar stopped moving he seemed to just disappear into the background. The Captain nodded in approval. Havar pulled a translucent card from his black dress suit and gave it to the Captain.

"Come to a show sometime, we'd love to have you," the girl told the Captain.

"We'll be delighted," the Captain replied as he took the card.

"Havar, package him up, we've got lots to do before our next show," the girl told him.

Havar moved forward towards the Doctor and directed the pirates holding him to place him into a metal box that painfully reminded Clara of a casket. Havar closed the top, but Clara could see the Doctor through a clear plexiglass window on the side. When the top clicked shut the casket seemed to light up, illumanating the Doctor's unconscious form. Very quickly a thick layer of frost blanketed the Doctor.

Stasis chamber, Clara quickly realized.

"Actually all of you are invited!" the girl threw into the air at least a hundred of the translucent cards. Clara very quickly picked one up and pocketed it.

"Good doing business with you, Lady Rlach'rnahnss'atin of Delchimsa," the Captain bowed and the girl returned it.

"You're my new favorites, if you find anything else interesting, call me first. Promise?"

"Promise," the Captain replied.

The girl turned away towards another door, followed by Havar who pushed the Doctor's stasis chamber on wheels. However just as soon as they left a voice came over the intercoms.

"Security breech! Unknown human on level 4!"

Suddenly everything descended in utter chaos.


	6. Welcome to Nightmare

"No," the Doctor gasped as he jolted into consciousness. "How?"

Tears threatened and filled to the brim as he found himself seated in a field of red grass. His whole body jerked as a flash of energy struck the snow capped mountain that loomed over head. He found himself on his feet when he smelled the Smoke.

A young voice from behind him shouted, "Run!"

The Doctor turned around to see the source of the screams and smoke and his jaw dropped.

"Arcadia," he whispered. She was in ruins and overrun with fire, blood, smoke and Daleks.

"Help me!" a little girl cried.

In an instant the Doctor acted. He ran to her and scooped her into his arms. He ran from Arcadia and straight into a man he didn't expect.

"Doctor?" the Doctor asked.

"Not exactly, get in quick," the younger old man replied.

The Doctor didn't hesitate and ran into the blue box. It wasn't until the Doctor sat the girl onto the floor that he noticed the red clinging to his clothes. It was camouflaged by her red robes. The Doctor pulled them away to find the source. She shuddered and her eyes closed.

"Stay with me," the Doctor told her.

"It hurts," she cried.

"You're going to regenerate, it's going to be okay."

"I don't know how."

"Don't worry, your body is encrypted with the process, just focus on my voice."

"I saw my mum do it once," the girl whispered as her skin began to glow.

"Yes good, think about that, you'll be okay."

The old Doctor that the Doctor tried to forget suddenly lifted the girl into his arms. The Doctor looked at him in horror.

"You can't move her!"

"She can't regenerate in here."

He took her to the door and the Doctor scrambled after him. The old Doctor sat the girl in a pile of lush red grass.

"IF she regenerates out here she'll be a beacon to the Daleks!" the Doctor told him.

"She's not regenerating in my Tardis, I can't afford the time it would take to rebuild."

The Doctor glared at his younger self, but it was too late. The girl burst into energy and screamed.

The Doctors stood away until the light dimmed. Then the Doctor ran to her. He stopped halfway, his arms frozen in place just before lifting her up. He looked at her new body. She had two new arms and hands with olive skin but her tiny body was replaced with a much larger one. She looked warped with her large chest and abdomen compared to her tiny arms and legs. Her face was nowhere to be seen. Where her neck should have been, blonde hair sprouted. The Doctor scanned her with the Sonic.

He stumbled back as the body convulsed. Gold light danced across her and dimmed. The convulsing stopped. Then began again.

"Failed regeneration," the old younger Doctor said.

"Utter hell until the thirty-six hour period is over," the Doctor turned away from her, unable to watch.

"By the time it is over, it will have depleted her regeneration energy and she'll die."

The Doctor shook his head and turned to his past self, "Corrective surgery could save her."

The Old younger Doctor shook his head, "Young man look around you. We are in a war, there is no time to save her. All of time is burning."

"We have to."

"There is nothing to be done, except to put her out of her misery."

"No!"

"If you really want to be so cruel and let her suffer for another 36 hours more then that is your decision but I wont take any part in it."

"I won't allow you to kill an innocent child."

"It is the only way to save her."

"We can stasis lock her, you can take me to Alanoxtrobeya."

"And what about the other six million children and people suffering? Shall we take them too? Everything is burning everyone is suffering, the only way to save everyone is by ending it. I have got work to do."

"Wait!"

The Doctor chased after him through the Tardis doors.

"I give you the Doctor! Last of the Time Lords!" announced an alien with coal black skin and splatters of sea green.

The Doctor froze and looked around. He appeared to be in an arena that seemed very similar to the Colosseum.

"What?"

"So tell us, we're dying to know who was the old man?"

The Doctor turned back to the announcer. "Who are you and where am I?" the Doctor demanded. He was still trying to make sense of how the Tardis's interior turned into a modified future version of Earth's Colosseum.

"Oh, poor Doctor, he is new," the host told the crowd, "I'm havar and we welcome you, Doctor to the Nightmare!"

The Doctor glanced at the audience as they blurred in and out of focus, as if they weren't entirely there. Some of the members of the audience seemed to cheer while others 'awed' the Doctor.

"This is a dream," the Doctor realized.

Havar clapped and the audience seemed to follow his lead, "Good job you figured it out. Sort of."

The Doctor gave an irritated smile and backed away from Havar, "I'll be on my way then."

The audience laughed as the Doctor closed his eyes. When nothing seemed to happen the Doctor opened one eye to see that he was still trapped within the dream.

"I'm afraid you can't just wake yourself up. It doesn't work like that," Havar told him. "No one can wake up before the show is over. So since you're stuck with us, why don't you tell us about that blue box. It seemed to be bigger on the inside. Please explain."

The Doctor's expression became confused, "What?"

"Or is that one too tricky? Too Time Lordy? How about the girl then, the old man called it failed regeneration."

"No," the Doctor whispered.

"Then tell us about that city, didn't you call it Arcadia, Have you been there before?"

"No," the Doctor repeated more forcibly. He stepped further away from Havar and closed his eyes once more.

"Uh oh, we have another telepathic expert... Thinks he'll just wake himself up."

The Doctor's brow furrowed in concentration. He gasped and opened his eyes when nothing changed.

"Sorry, Doc, can't leave until the show is over."

"Cut!" A young voice called out above the crowd, "I'll finish the training Havar, go take a break. You earned it."

Instantly the audience disappeared along with Havar. The Doctor stood completely still as the Colosseum shrunk into the size a gymnasium. He turned at the sounds of foot steps echoing behind him, towards him. He took a single step back as she stopped in front of him.

"Delchimsa," the Doctor spoke, naming the girl's species.

"I am Rlach'rnahnss'atin," the girl bowed, "Or Nss'a for short."

"That's very human of you."

Nss'a shrugged, "I like humans, they're fun and they love the show."

The Doctor abruptly began waving his hand in front of his face."

"It's not an hologram."

The Doctor stopped, "I thought not."

"So tell me about your dream, the planet with red grass and of course the girl."

"You have access to my dreams, how?"

"Oh, you know the right combination of illegal drugs, a few dream state enhancers and a couple hundred dream share devices. They had literally no idea how handy those things are. Nightmare is much more than just a TV show, it is just one part of the fun. And it is the most viewed in seven galaxies. And I like the good ratings. So we will finish rehearsal and you will recap your dreams and answer whatever Havar asks."

"I refuse-AAAH!"

The Doctor's eyes flew open and he screamed again. He tried to get away but his wrists, ankles, neck were restrained with leather buckles. Everything hurt and burned. Despite it all he tried to calm down so he could access what was happening to him. His back, spine, neck, head, chest, eyes, arms- everything, hurt. He tried to turn his head, but it was held in place and needles pierced his scalp.

"Hello, Doctor."

His eyes looked to the side and there Nss'a stood.

"Preparation for Nightmare is rather unpleasant so we usually knock out our contestants. But if you refuse to play then we'll just have to wake you up, like you wanted." Nss'a almost soothingly pushed his hair out of his eyes, but her hand bumped into a set of needles. The Doctor screamed. "Or you can play the game."

"I refuse!" he screamed as she 'accidentally' bumped more of the needles.

"Very well, shout if you change your mind, or better yet, take a nap."

Nss'a left the room. The Doctor tried to calm his hammering hearts, panicking would get him no where. As his hearts slowed he took stock of his predicament. Escaping was not impossible. He could easily dislocate his wrist and then he'd have a free hand. However before he made the attempt, he noticed the various needles and tubes stuck into his arms and wondered what they were pumping into him. He searched inside and found many foreign chemicals, a sensory enhancer, a sedative and various others. The Doctor shuddered and tried not to think about the sensory enhancer. Then he began to mentally prepare himself to dislocate his own wrist, he had to get out of here. They had managed to get into his head and they might only interpret his dreams as dreams. However, most of them were memories. He couldn't let them realize it, If he stayed awake, then they couldn't get into his head.

The Doctor took a deep breath and began counting, "One, two-." The Doctor stopped as the door suddenly opened. Another alien, similar in species to Havar entered into the room. Her white lab coat screamed 'evil scientist.

"Lady Nss'a says; 'last chance."

The Doctor grit his teeth, knowing what was about to happen, "I refuse," he whispered.

The scientist nodded and rolled a small table with various sharp shiny tools meant specifically for causing him pain. She picked up one of the laser scalpels and pointed it at the top of the Doctor's sternum.

"Not another vivisection," the Doctor whimpered as he braced himself.

"Dr. Brandeth?" an intercom spat.

The alien scientist straightened up and moved tool away from the Doctor.

"Yes?"

"I am sorry to delay your appointment with the Doctor, but an emergency has arrived on level three."

"I'm on my way," she replied, "Give you a little while longer to reconsider Lady Nss'a's offer."

She gently slid her finger down the Doctor's chest, making the vivisection lines with her finger. Only then did the Doctor realize his shirt was missing. She placed her hands over top of the Doctor's hearts,

"Please refuse," she whispered as she applied pressure there, "I want to hold your hearts in my bare hands."

With those final words, Dr. Brandeth left the Doctor alone. He let out a shaky breath. He had to get out of here. He so didn't look forward to escaping with a dislocated wrist.

"Wrong way!" the voice of a young man made the Doctor jump.

"You did it Raoul!" a woman's voice followed.

The Doctor looked up to see yet another pair of humanoid aliens enter the room. One was a young woman with blonde hair the other was a young man with light brown hair. They did not don the dreaded white coats that screamed evil scientist. Theirs were a little bit worn out and blackened, as if they had climbed through a dusty crawl space.

"But this isn't the exit," the man argued.

"It doesn't matter, we found a contestant!" the woman came right up to the Doctor. "My name is Samant, that's Raoul. You wanna get out of here?"

"Yes, please!" the Doctor begged, he didn't like begging, but he didn't want to be dissected again and he certainly didn't want anymore people running a muck in his head. The aliens started to undo the straps, as soon as his wrists were free he ripped the needles and tubes from his arms. When they released the rest of him, the Doctor carefully removed the needles. Well he managed to remove three, then he laid back down panting. "Help?" he whispered.

Samant and Raoul carefully removed the needles. The Doctor closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and tried not to scream.

"We're done!" Samant said too loudly, making the Doctor wince. The Doctor opened his eyes, but the room spun around him. "We'll help you," Samant told him quietly. Both Samant and Raoul took one of the Doctor's arms around their shoulders and helped him to his feet. The Doctor was dazed and had trouble keeping his feet underneath him, however Samant and Raoul carried him on.

As they quickly moved down the well lit corridors, the Doctor's mind finally cleared. "Where are we going?" he asked breathlessly.

"To our ship," Samant told him.

"If we can get there undetected, this is the worst plan ever!" Raoul declared.

They kept moving forward until they heard steps heading their way, so they turned down another corridor, which produced the same sounds of feet.

"We're surrounded!" Raoul hissed.

"Okay into a viewing room," decided Samant. They ran one of the unlocked rooms. Raoul let go of the Doctor to lock the door. Samant sagged to the floor with the Doctor as she couldn't hold him up. Raoul returned to them and helped push the Doctor up against the wall. He leaned his head back, their escape wore him out.

`"You can't move her!"

"She can't regenerate in here."

"IF she regenerates out here she'll be a beacon to the Daleks!" the Doctor told him.

"She's not regenerating in my Tardis, I can't afford the time it would take to rebuild."~

The Doctor's eyes flashed open and he looked up. There was a massive screen up on the wall and it displayed the Doctor's dream. He watched himself and his former self step away from the girl as her body burst into light.

"No, no, no, turn it off!" the Doctor cried. "Turn it off now!"

"I can't, this is a viewing room," Samant stuttered.

"They think this room is filled up with audience members, if we turn it off then it'll send a direct message to the command bridge and they'll send someone down here to investigate," Raoul explained.

The Doctor gritted his teeth in frustration. He turned his head away from the screen and away from Samant and Raoul. The display continued on.

~"Failed regeneration."

"Utter hell until the thirty-six hour period is over."

"By the time it is over, it will have depleted her regeneration energy and she'll die."~

"Why?" the Doctor whispered, "Why are they doing this to me?" He looked up at Samant and Raoul whom stood by the door watching to see if it was safe for them to move. Samant turned back to the Doctor and crouched down in front of him, nearly blocking the screen from view.

"It is called Nightmare, the creators bring in contestants and implant a probe that records their dreams. They have a whole butt load of drugs they pump in to induce nightmares and then they use the Dream Share devices to project themselves so they can interact with the contestant. It is the ultimate horror show. And it is considered 'acceptable' because no 'real' harm comes to the contestant."

~"And what about the other six million children and people suffering? Shall we take them too? Everything is burning everyone is suffering, the only way to save everyone is by ending it. I have got work to do."

"Wait!"~

The Doctor closed his eyes and growled, "It is barbaric."

"I know, that's why we're here, trying to put an end to it. We've recorded some of the atrocities. And if we can escape from here we'll take it to the Shadow Proclamation."

The Doctor opened his eyes, "Take me with you, I'll help."

"That's the plan." Samant smiled.

"The coast is clear!" Raoul announced. He and Samant helped the Doctor to his feet and they set off down the corridor. They made it to the docking station unnoticed and into a small sturdy ship, meant for limited crew and quick transportation. Within twenty minutes of freeing the Doctor from the restraints, they were out of the solar system.


	7. Down the Rabbit Hole

Why hello there! Thank you for your reviews! They make the sun shine and they encourage me to update more too. Here's chapter 7. I hope you enjoy. And please tell me what you think!

* * *

Captain Coledartur sent the guard of pirates to level 4. Clara followed the flow until she could pull herself away and into an empty corridor. She pulled out the data-pack/monitor and sonic screwdriver and tried to pin point Jack. She found him running towards the mass crowd of pirates. Thinking on her feet Clara accessed the intercom and quickly spoke into the Sonic.

"Jack, level 2 corridor fifty-one, quick!"

She watched as Jack on the screen stopped and looked around with a confused expression. "Clara? Is that you?"

"Of course it is me, you are about to run into a bunch of pirates! Use the vortex manipulator, level 2 corridor fifty-one."

"Short hops are complicated."

"I don't care, I know where the Doctor has gone, get up here, quick!"

Jack gave an irritated growl as he finally listened to Clara. He slammed into the floor right behind Clara, making her turn around with a little gasp. Jack jumped to his feet and drew his pistol and pointed it at Clara. Clara only pointed to the Sonic and Jack lowered his gun.

"You make a very convincing pirate."

"That one is an insult."

"Sorry. How did you know where I was and how to contact me through the coms?"

Clara held up her tools of data-pack, monitor and the Sonic, "This stuff is super easy to hack."

"You did say that you were from the 21st century."

"I did, but a lot has happened since I met the Doctor."

"Speaking of which did you find anything out?"

"Yes lots, some alien called a Delchimsa and then a really long word that starts with an R, I can't pronounce it took him. Sold him to the pirates for fifty-million credits. She said something about a show and passed these out."

Clara dug out of her pocket the translucent card and held it up to Jack. He took it and closed his eyes with a defeated sigh.

"What's wrong, I know where they're going to be! That's good news right?"

"Yes, but the bad news is that he's been taken by Nightmare and that's very bad."

"What's Nightmare?"

Jack's eyes widened and grabbed her arm and then Clara knew why. The pounding feet of the dreaded badger pirates. "Who else heard your transmission, I wonder?"

"Probably the whole level, let's teleport to this 'Nightmare' ship and get the Doctor. They left less than ten minutes ago, they gotta be close."

Jack gave her a look. "It isn't going to be that easy, they're probably out of pirate space and in the Teinfanox galaxy by now. I can't track them with just this. We've got to think things through."

"And be sensible?"

"Yes."

"Being sensible has delayed us from helping the Doctor already. That girl, the Delchimsa, she hurt him and she enjoyed it, did it for fun. We got to get him out now."

"I'm the only one who could survive the rescue mission you're imagining. And when I did survive, I'd end up a prisoner as well. Trust me I know these people."

"You do?"

"It has been a long time for me, but yes. They are not your regular bad guys. We've got to come up with a plan."

"Planning time is running out," Clara realized as pirates suddenly came into view, surrounding them.

"Hang on!" Jack screamed.

He grabbed Clara and he activated the vortex manipulator just as the pirates fired. The green light of the lasers stopped an inch before reaching them. Then it stretched and grew and swirled over their heads. The light blurred and turned to a golden color and the pirates and corridor melted away. Wind whipped around them as if they were inside a tornado, everything spun and Clara's hair flew into her eyes. Darkness suddenly replaced the light and finally Clara relaxed. Too tired to hold onto Jack anymore.

She moaned as she finally opened her eyes. She was lying sideways on top of something. She pushed herself up and heard Jack groan. Clara blushed and quickly clambered away from him. She realized they were in a alley way as she used the brick wall to get to her feet. She looked up into the black sky littered with twinkly stars and an orange-yellow planet that loomed above. She could see space ships zooming over head. When she turned around she saw a massive city that climbed into the sky like a mountain. The spirals and buildings were speckled with lights and she could hear music playing. She looked back at Jack whom had finally made it to his feet with another growl of pain.

"Where are we?"

"Ragelsii, on Leyavaleth the fourth planet in the Teinfanox system. One month from the next showing." Jack held up the translucent card.

"One month?!" Clara shouted.

"Clara you need to listen to me and trust me. This is Nightmare we are talking about, not to mention the Lady Rlach'rnahnss'atin of Delchimsa herself."

"But what does that mean?"

"How do you expect to explain the Delchimsa to a simple 21st century human? Okay listen, we can't just break into the ship and grab him. We need to wait for the right moment and in a month they'll have a live viewing...like how do you explain in simple terms...a petting zoo. Yeah, the petting zoo is coming to town. They'll only let a select few in. So we need to establish ourselves as fanatics, go through the fan application process, so we can get it and save the Doctor."

"And that is going to take us a month to do?"

"Usually it takes a year, but like I said, I know these people and I have connections, we can get it done in a month."

"Okay, so what do we do first?"

"First we need to find a residency. Which means we'll need some money."

"And how are we going to do that?"

"Well lucky us, I know some people who owe me money."

Jack led Clara through the winding alley ways and streets of Ragelsii until he finally settled in a bar. They sat down in a dark corner.

"Keep your helmet on, you should be left alone for the most part and hang onto this." Jack gave her the wrist strap. "If I'm not back in an hour go back to the hub, you'll be safe there."

"Wait, I thought we were going to get money from some guy who owes you."

"Not some guy, more complicated than that."

"If you disappear on me, then you leave me to find the Doctor on my own."

"You're suggesting that you come with me."

"Yes."

"No."

"Why not?"

"I'm not going to risk your life."

Clara rolled her eyes, not that Jack could see passed the helmet, "My life is already at risk. It was the moment I decided to get up this morning. I'm not leaving you."

"If you get hurt-"

"I got myself this far and I figured out where the Doctor is going to be. Stop worrying about me and lets get this done!"

Jack glared at her. "You stubborn-"

"And bossy, don't forget the bossy."

"What are you?"

"I'm a teacher, lets go get the Doctor. Or whatever it is that we have to do to get him."

"Right, follow me."

Jack and Clara once more wandered the streets. As Jack weaved through the crowds of aliens he spoke to Clara, "This sort of move is bound to get violent. And you should know, if it is a life or death moment, don't try to save me."

"What?"

"Just promise me you won't get in the way."

"If you die, then I'm on my own."

"Not for long." Before Clara could ask they climbed into a sort of lift.

"Now these guys don't like humans much. And they won't be happy to see me. But they're a coward so if they see you they might be willing to pay up without too much violence."

"So it is good that I came along."

"I don't know how well it'll go. I know that I'd be able to wrangle out the ten grand on my own...eventually. But it shouldn't hurt too much to strong arm 'em out of it. So keep your helmet on. Pirates are pretty common around here and are rather feared, believe it or not. They're like the police, no, the mafia of this part of the galaxy. You should act bored and disinterested. Like this little petty

deal is an inconvenience. Dave and Jo will assume that I promised you part of the pay.

"Dave and Jo?"

"Nicknames, easier to remember, you'll see."

The lift came to an halt and Jack led Clara to a dark and dirty corridor, on the right the view showed more of the city that spiraled downwards. Jack stopped a door that had 69 carved in the center. Clara hung back, letting her arms hang at her sides. The door opened to an humanoid alien. It was tall and a little bit bulky with two arms, two legs, tanned skin and two heads. It had two necks that nearly touched, sitting side by side. The alien, or aliens? Were in the midst of an argument. One head seemed slightly more feminine with a slightly smaller and rounded face. 'She' wore heaving make up and bright red lipstick. Her eyes were white and seemed to glow a little and her long purple hair

was braided. Some of the braids were pulled up into a bun. The other head seemed slightly more masculine was lounger and more angular. 'He' had golden eyes with the same glowing effect as the first head. He did not where make up but his face was covered with piercings and he had short spiky neon green hair with pink tips.

"I said we are staying in tonight!" the purple haired head said.

"And I agreed, I want to see what happens next too, but it is totally acceptable to open the door."

"But we might miss the next part, I have to see what happens to Ravana!"

"We won't miss the next part, we have twenty minutes before part five starts, plenty enough time to open the door."

"This better not take-," both heads immediately stopped and looked. "Quick, close the door!" the purple haired one yelled.

"Jack!" the other one practically shouted, he slapped Jack on the shoulder with the left hand. The right hand, on the side of the purple haired head, gripped the door frame, making it nearly impossible for them to move forward. "My favorite human, how's it been? Last I saw you, you were being hauled away by Hart, drunk senseless. We always wondered if you'd survived that night. I know he had plans for you."

"Davsophnossianaohtii," the other head whispered. The green haired one turned to look at the purple haired one. His expression was wide eyed and he shrugged with the arm he controlled. The purple haired one nodded towards Clara. He turned to look at Jack and then back at the purple haired one.

"What?"

"Your friend Jack has brought along a pirate."

"Aaaaw Jaaack, ruin all of the fun," the green haired head moaned.

"Now, now Dave, this is Claroen, she won't bite, as long as you're nice."

Clara folded her arms and 'Dave' gulped.

"Hey, Jo, this guy treating you right?"

"It's Josavinidsianeophatii to you!" Jo, the purple haired one spat.

"Hey no need for rudeness. You haven't even invited us in. Can you believe this?" Jack looked over to Clara and she sighed loudly. Both 'Jo and Dave' looked nervous. They glanced at each other and then finally slowly backed through the door.

"Come on in," Dave replied, his voice wavering.

Jack nodded to Clara and they both entered the 42nd Ragelsii flat. Clara was disappointed to see that it looked like any other flat. The lighting was dark and there was a blank section of wall that projected a series of advertisements.

"Have a seat, would like eitta, or a vroshnr?"

"No, I'm not giving you the chance to spike our drinks," Jack told Dave as Jack sat down. Clara stood by the closed door, giving that active somewhat threatening appearance.

"So, what can we-"

"You," Jo spat.

"What can I do for you?" Dave very quickly amended.

"Well, surely you remember. You owe me some money."

"Oh Jack, can't you come back later?"

"'Fraid not."

"Why now? You know I don't get paid until next week."

"I need it now."

"You're a time agent, they pay well, why can't you just let it go."

The glare Jack gave to Dave sent him into a stammer.

"We'll give you whatever you want, can't you just shut up for an hour, please," Jo suddenly begged.

"What? Why?"

"Nightmare of course! We're on part five, Ravana. She's been corned by the Shadow Proclamation and is awaiting public execution. I think she'll survive, but who knows, this is Nightmare after all?"

Jo swapped her attention from Jack to the project, it was running a recap. Jo held a controller in her hand and her finger twitched to up the volume. Jack glanced over at Clara, then back at Jo.

"Fine get a chair for Claroen, I'm sure she won't mind one episode. But you better pay up as soon as this is over."

"Deal!" Both Jo and Dave said at once. They quickly stood up and gestured to a padded chair in the corner. Clara slowly walked over and sat down. Dave and Jo jumped back to the couch and upped the volume.

~"You are sentenced to death by acid, any last words before your timely execution?" a tall pale skin woman asked Ravana, an humanoid alien that seemed to be female. She had a spiked fringe that seemed to defy gravity and the rest of its hair hung down to its knees.

"This is a mistake!" Ravana shouted. She stood at the edge of a plank surrounded by boiling yellow liquid. "It wasn't me I didn't possess anyone."

"Your statement will have no effect to your sentence, goodbye Ravana of the Astretheniatoent."

"No!" Ravana shouted as she was shoved forward.~

"Nooooo!" screamed Jo.

~Ravana fell into the acid and tried to keep to the top of the pool, despite her skin quickly melting. Suddenly lasers and a light show showered onto the proclamation and they ran for cover.

"Ravana!" screamed a mans voice and he reached into the acid and pulled Ravana out. He ignored his own wounds the acid created on his arms and hands and lifted Ravana out. He quickly gathered her in his arms and yelled into a communication device, "Get us out of here!" and they disappeared into a blue light.~

Clara sat quietly, watching the projection. She didn't know what to make of it. She did suppose that if she was watching this on the telly at home it would be rather interesting. She might have enjoyed it. But Jo had mentioned Nightmare and that was where the Doctor was. Clara glanced at Jack, to try and gauge his expression; to see what he thought of it all. Jack only gave an half interested attention to the projection. Unlike Jo, whom was fixated. Dave seemed more relaxed, but gave nervous glances towards Clara every now and then. The show was rather easy to make sense of. Ravana was the main character and in love with Rohhier. She took the blame for his actions against the shadow proclamation. Rohhier saved her at the last moment and was begging a doctor to save her.

~"She is an Astretheniatoent. To save her would be a crime worse than death," the doctor told Rohhier.

"I am in charge here, you will save her!" Rohhier commanded.~

Clara glanced at Jo when she began to mutter. The screen went dark and then blurred as they were seeing from Ravana's point of view.

~It's okay," Rohhier told her soothingly from her bedside.

Ravana gasped as her eyesight cleared. She looked down at her body and half of it was replaced in metal.

"No! Rohhier, what have you done?" her voice was wrong and synthesized.

"I saved you," Rohhier told her as he kissed her robotic hand.

"How am I supposed to get to Shambala now? Cyborgs aren't allowed, you know that, I told you that!"

"You don't have to worry about Shamabala, you can stay with me."~

Clara turned to Jo as she suddenly began to sob, "Irreversible, completely irreversible. How could they, how dare they? And how could they not?"

~I trusted you!" Ravana screamed as she began pulling wires and bits from her body. She began convulsing after one too many vital wires were ripped free. Rohhier called for help.

"You should have let me die," Ravana whispered before the drugs took her under.

"How could I let you go?" Rohhier asked her as he stroked her cheek.

The next scene consisted of Rohhier trying to make it up to Ravana. By the end of it he gave up and locked her in a room with a straitjacket on so she couldn't damage herself any further. After struggling and failing, Ravana gave up and laid herself down onto the floor.

She cried out, "Ast, Reth, En! Forgive me! I didn't mean for this to happen, I didn't choose this! Please, let me come home!"

She closed her eyes and the screen went black. Slowly light crept in bringing a stone hall into view. Seated on three high stone thrones sat three creatures that resembled a dragon, phoenix and a sphinx. Ravana bowed before them.

"Ast, Reth, En," Ravana whispered their names in respect.

The Dragon's head lifted up to reveal an humanoid shaped mouth on its throat, "Give my name."

Ravana lifted her head and spoke, "Ast."

The Phoenix also lifted its head to reveal a humanoid mouth on the throat and spoke, "Give me my name."

"Reth," Ravana answered.

Finally the Spinx spoke with her natural mouth, "And mine."

"En," Ravana answered.

"You have denied," spoke Ast.

"Yourself. Given over to," continued Reth.

"An alien," completed En.

The three creatures, Ast, Reth and En continued to speak in this strange break up of words.

"Of poor quality," said Ast.

"He ruined you and," said Reth

"Tricked you," said En

"For his faults," said Ast

"You took his blame," said Reth.

"Your sacrifice," said En

"Is wasted. Your," said Ast

"Trust is misplaced and," said Reth

"Your home," said En.

"Is lost. The," said Ast.

"Key is gone. How," said Reth.

"Can our," said En.

"Daughter return to," said Ast.

"To us? But to," said Reth.

"Remove your," said En.

"Sins and you," said Ast.

"May enter our hall," said Reth.

"As our," said En.

"Daughter. To enter this," said Ast

"Sacred place, filthy as," said Reth.

"As you," said En.

"Are now will," said Ast.

"End in your death," said Reth.

"Goodbye, Daughter," completed En.

The hall faded and cut to Ravana lying on the floor. She snapped her eyes open. The screen darkened with a white text.

TO BE CONTINUED...~

"Noooo!" Jo cried again, she gasped, "She can't undo it she'll die!"

"But if she managed to undo it she would go to Shambala," argued Dave.

"And the show would end! You can't record the experiences of the disembodied consciousness of Ravana Astretheniatoent returning to the Astrethen!"

"I can't but maybe Nightmare can." Dave suggested.

"Alright, Jo, Dave. Show's over, ten grand...now!"

Clara took that as her cue to stand up and look though she really just wanted to sleep. Jo/Dave stood up and started rummaging around the flat. They delivered eight-thousand and five-hundred to Jack.

"Where's the rest of it?"

"I'll get it to you next week."

"No, that's no good for me."

Clara stepped forward and Jo/Dave paled to a sickly green.

"We don't have it now, please give us a chance."

"Don't make me use the pirate," Jack warned.

"Wait!" Jo cried. Her hand pulled out a data-pack from under the couch and handed it to Jack.

"What's this?"

"Its a FNAP. I'm Club leader for Flnogiotr this side of Ragelsii. That pack is worth a thousand credits, at least. I'm sure a man of your expertise could get it easily up to three grand! And next week we'll get you the fifteen-hundred credits. I swear."

"Really, you think this is worth three-thousand credits?"

"As club leader I get them for eight-hundred." Jo half shrugged.

"Alright, fine." Jack took the data-pack and then smiled, "Good seeing you Dave, Jo. And who knows maybe Ravana will like being a cyborg."

"As if! You get out of here!" Jo giggled. Clara relaxed as the tension broke apart.

"Later!" Jack said with a sincere smile. He turned to Clara and nodded, they let themselves out.

As soon as they were out and headed back down the lift, Clara turned to Jack and asked, "So eight thousand credits is enough to get us started, right?"

"Oh Clara, my dear Clara, it is much better than that."

"How?"

Jack fished the FNAP data-pack and showed it to Clara, "Do you know what this is?"

"The FNAP thingy that Jo gave you."

"Do you know what FNAP stands for?"

"No."

"Fans Nightmare Application Pack. It is what we need to establish our membership."

"So we can get in to get the Doctor."

"Exactly."

"Did you know?"

"Know what?"

"That they were fans of Nightmare?"

"I told you I have connections."

"Yeah, but earlier you were worried that you might die. I would have been less worried about you if I had known what Dave and Jo were like."

"There was always the chance of Felice being in, He's Dave's boyfriend and very overprotective over both of them. He'd put up a fight."

"Right so we've got money."

"Yep."

"And the applications."

"Yep."

"Now what do we do?"

"Now we pose as a married couple who want are desperate to be writers for Nightmare."

"Married couple?"


	8. Fire on the Starboard Bow

Aha! Two chapters in one evening...I'm on a roll. Don't know when I'll get chapter 9 out, maybe tomorrow, maybe not, tomorrow is going to be very busy. Well I hope you enjoy! And please review!

* * *

The Doctor sat slumped in a seat, nearly too tired to move. That memory of what happen to the Time Lord child kept replaying in his mind, brought forward thanks to Nightmare and Nss'a. Slowly he felt along the back of his head at the base of his skull. A subtle lump was there, a lump that did not belong. Samant told him that Nightmare implants a mind probe that records dreams. If the Doctor fell asleep now, the probe would record the dream and relay it to the headquarters. No matter how tired the Doctor was, nor how much a healing coma would heal him, he could not allow himself to fall asleep.

"You should get some sleep," Samant said as she brought him a nutrient bar and a flask of water. He sighed irritably as he accepted the food and drink. "The sedatives should wear off soon."

"It's not that. It's this," the Doctor pointed to the back of his head.

"I'm sure the Shadow proclamation will remove it for you," Samant suggested.

The Doctor shook his head, "If I sleep with it in, it will record my dreams and send them straight to Nightmare."

"But at least they can't interact with them or you while you're dreaming."

"They cannot be allowed to broadcast my dreams."

"Why, what's so dangerous about your dreams?"

The Doctor bowed his head. "The projection in the viewing room was from the Time War."

"You were in the Ti-," Raoul started to answer, but Samant nudged him with her elbow and he quietened.

"It wasn't a dream, but a memory," the Doctor whispered.

"So what happened to that girl was real? How is that possible?" Raoul asked.

"A deformation, a failed regeneration, her spine bent backward and regrew her head inside her stomach," the Doctor whispered. He straightened up and looked at Samant, "I want it out, I need it out, please. Get it out," the Doctor's face felt flushed and his eyes watered with unshed tears.

"But the mind probe is inserted at the base cerebellum, one wrong move and I could kill you," Samant told him.

"I cannot rest, until it is out," the Doctor told them. "If you do not do this, then you force me to stay awake."

"I'm not a brain surgeon. All I know is from speed reading the Nightmare procedure!" Samant told him.

"If I fall asleep, the probe will activate, record my dreams and send it to command, then they'll track back the signal and find our location," the Doctor warned her.

"It doubles as a tracking device," Raoul realized.

"We don't have the right tools for brain surgery, we can't just perform brain surgery on you. Am I the only one who sees that this is a bad idea?"

"Samant, look at him, he's falling apart. He needs to sleep and rest. But he can't do it with the probe in him, or else we'll be found. We don't have an other choice."

"Please," the Doctor added, "Or I'll have to do it myself."

Samant paled at the thought. "You could only get three needles out of your head, how do you expect to...how would you even?"

"I'd probably settle for stabbing it with a knife," the Doctor admitted. He held up his shaking hands. "The sedative is making it hard to concentrate."

"Oh for goodness sakes. Fine, I'll do it. Oh gods I'm going to perform brain surgery. The closest thing I've done before was dissecting a corbellion back in Uni."

Samant continued to mumble and mutter about corbellion cyborg lizards as she prepared for brain surgery on the Doctor. Their small ship didn't have a sick bay or even a table. So they set a couple of blankets on the floor for the Doctor to lay on. Luckily their little ship was stocked with a simple med kit. It included a med-scanner and programmed with the correct procedure for removing a Nightmare mind probes. She had at her disposal a single laser scalpel, a neck brace, spray antiseptics, a tissue knitter, a few rolls of bandages and finally three options of analgesics. Samant sanitized her hands and then put on a pair of gloves.

"I uh, we've got some analgesics here, you probably want some painkillers before we start this," Samant asked the Doctor.

"What do you have?"

"Psilocybin, Raxanol, Codeine Sulfate," Raoul read them off one by one.

The Doctor shook his head and closed his eyes, preparing himself for the agony that was surely to come without proper pain relief.

"You don't want any of them?" Samant asked.

"All poison in my veins. I'll go without."

""Are you sure?"

"Please, just hurry up and get it out of my head."

"Okay." She took a deep breath and picked up the laser scalpel. "Don't move."

The Doctor tried to obey, but he couldn't help the involuntary reaction of wincing as the laser sliced through his flesh.

"I can see the probe," Samant announced.

"Remove it, slowly,' the Doctor told her through gritted teeth. He whined and whimpered as he felt her grip the probe between her fingers.

Suddenly the entire ship jolted to the side. The lights flickered off and then flashed red as the Doctor screamed in pure agony. Samant looked down in horror as she held the probe. The end of the probe's wired tendrils clung to pieces of the Doctor's brain. Samant began sagging down next to the Doctor as the room spun and she couldn't breathe. The Doctor was still screaming. Raoul didn't have time to check on them, someone had knocked them out of hyper drive.

"Samant!" Raoul shouted as he maneuvered the little ship out of the line of fire. "Samant, you've got to take care of him, I'm busy!" Samant opened her eyes and looked at the Doctor. He was still screaming in agony, but he hadn't moved much in the assault.

"Samant, you've got to finish that us and secure him, we're under fire from pirates!"

She took in several deep breaths and then pulled herself together. "I'm sorry Doctor, she whispered as she deposited the probe and bits of brain into a plastic bag and sealed it. She scanned the Doctor and let out a breath of relief, she managed not to tear any of the arteries in the Doctor's brain. His screams turned into moans when she sealed up the wound. The next shot rocked their small ship, sending Samant tumbling over the Doctor. The Doctor's screams began again.

"Secure him!" Raoul shouted.

"I'm trying!" Samant shouted back. She pulled herself back up and grabbed the neck brace and put it around his neck, just in case. She carefully pulled him up and strapped him into one of the pilot seats.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"We aren't going to make it to the Proclamation, aren't we?" Samant asked him as she secured the Doctor.

"We might be able to-." Raoul started, but then saw her face. "No...not on this ship."

"We have to evacuate. Find us a place to hide," Samant told him as she pulled out one of the extra head straps, to hold the Doctor's head still.

"There is Tsosherpibdae. It's heavily forested, there is an human colony on the surface of the southern continent. They're under Shadow Proclamation protection, there is a chance we can contact the Proclamation from there."

"Then that is our destination. Quick as you can, Raoul." She gave him a kiss on his cheek for good luck and then buckled herself in.


	9. Slash, Hurt Comfort, Explicit Violence

This chapter contains all dialogue. The next chapter will have more action, I promise. Also sorry for it being so short.

* * *

"Welcome home, darling," Jack announced as he opened the door to the small flat on the upper levels of Flnogiotr side of Ragelsii.

"Don't do that," Clara moaned at the billionth married joke Jack managed to sputter since he'd forged the data work.

"Well, officially we are married."

"Which you forged for the soul purpose of establishing ourselves in the Nightmare fandom so we can save the Doctor. Out there," Clara pointed towards the door, "I will pretend, but not in here. If you want to survive this next month you gotta give me my space."

"Okay, calm down. I was only joking, unless you change your mind."

"Jack," Clara warned.

He laughed at her and then became serious, " Fine. So we've managed to get pretty high on our to do list, despite only just getting here..."

"We've got the currency, applications, residency, relationship established. Explain that one again, I don't get it."

"Married couples get in easier than loaners. Easier to pass the fandom down to the children or something, I don't know."

"So what do we do next?" Clara finally sank down into the cushions of a sofa, their flat was completely furnished. She hoped that Jack got her her own room. If not then he got the couch. She couldn't remember how long it had been since she slept and being unconscious didn't count.

"Now we fill out the application. Well I'll fill it out to save time, but we will need to think creatively for some of these answers. You see it gets a little tricky. We need to log in 200 hours of Nightmare and then take the exam, which will be provided by our local FNMC."

"Its like trying to get your teacher's certificate."

"Yeah. Like I said, it usually takes years to establish a high level presence in the Fandom."

"Well you can mark me down for one hour just 199 left to go."

"Only about a hundred for me."

"Really?"

"In the old days, it was popular, even in the 52nd century. Right, next question, what genre do you prefer?"

"Huh?"

"When watching the telly or reading a book, what do you like to see?"

"Adventure?"

"Oh yeah that's going to get us far."

"I don't understand what this has to do with anything. You haven't explained what it is, is it like a channel, like BBC 4? All you've said is that it is like a petting zoo and all I've seen is that

Ravana episode a couple of hours ago. What does my preference of genre matter?"

Jack sighed heavily as he sat down in the chair opposite to her. He rested the tablet he used on his leg as he explained, "Nightmare is sort of like a channel, I guess. They run the show also called Nightmare. And there are at least twenty different stories that go along with it. They have their

contestants, as they call them. They implant a device into their heads to basically record their dreams. On top of it they have them hooked up to dream shares, which were invented a hundred or so years ago, for people to share their dreams. Basically straight forward that one. Nightmare is able to interact with the contestants' dreams and to somewhat control them. Nightmare records the dreams of the contestants and edits them and then broadcasts them."

Clara stared at him, shocked, "So Ravana really is a girl whom believes in AstRethEn and believes she is in love with Rohhier."

"Yes. And everything you saw is in her dream. She isn't an actor, she isn't acting, she believes what is happening, what she feels, sees, hears, touches, tastes, everything is real to her."

"So she experienced being burned by acid and being turned into a cyborg."

"Yes. And because of her species rejects cyborgs, she believes that she won't go to her religion's version of heaven. Nightmare is making her question her belief. And maybe she'll try and commit suicide."

"But it is all in her mind, she is dreaming those things."

"She'll wake up and realize Rohhier was just a figment of Nightmare's imagination."

"And the Doctor is going to be in the midst of all of that?"

"Yes."

"So when it asks for my favorite genre, I need to choose something they do a lot of."

"Sort of, but it is called Nightmare for a reason."

"So if I said Romance Adventure?"

"Then your application would be put to the side and deemed, 'boring'."

"What did you put for yours?"

Jack picked up the tablet and scrolled over to his application, "Slash, explicit sex, hurt slash comfort."

"Ugh."

Jack shrugged. "You asked."

"So something extreme, I don't know, explicit violence and horror?"

"Better, I'll put it down with a side of hurt slash comfort."

"Okay."

Jack moved on to the next section, "We need to find ourselves a label."

"And that means?"

"What sort of fanatics are we?"

"Big ones?"

Jack rolled his eyes. "There is about fifty options, right on from cosplay to fanart."

"You're using words that aren't in my vocabulary."

"Cosplay is costume plus play. They dress up as characters and create the costumes and some even swap genders to play out characters slash contestants. Fanart is art created by the fanatics that illustrate their favorite scenes or characters."

"How do these labels have to do with us getting in for the live viewing?"

"If we're cosplayers then we'd get hooked up into the dreamshare so we can interact with contestants within the dreams. Fanartists get to take contestants out into the workshop and do a photo shoot. Posing contestants how they like, or they might get to be in Control and set up a setting for a contestant to pose in within the dream."

"So we choose one of these labels that will help us get to be with the Doctor alone?"

"Yes."

"So we need a label which has him unhooked from the dreamshare," Clara suggested. "What kind of label could get us that?"

"Maybe a Nightviewer."

"What is that?"

"They get a personal live review with a contestant. But it is a tricky one. We have to have a track record for previous interviews with other fandoms and a channel. It isn't likely we'll be able to fake our way through it. We need a label we can fake well enough to get in. The real question is, what can we fake well. I'd be good and Fanacombations."

"What's that?"

"Fans whom study the combat techniques of a specific contestant."

"That's a bit beyond me."

"Yeah. Do you do art, are you good at art?"

"Not really."

"What are you, I mean what do you do besides travel with the Doctor, what's your job, you do have a job right?"

"I'm a teacher,"

"What do you teach?"

"Literature."

"Are you good at it...? Good at writing?"

"Making up stories," Clara shrugged. "I guess. I'm pretty good with telling stories, descriptive words and remembering details, but I don't know how that helps us."

"We've got an option called Fanovels. Fans whom write their own stories about contestants. This is looking like our only good option, with your literature skills."

"But this will need to be in my chosen genre, right?"

"Yes, Horror, hurt slash comfort with explicit violence."

"If I pass off for one of these writers, do we get a private session with the Doctor?"

"Not exactly, we'd be set up into the control room. We might be able to work it out to get into the dreamshare and send in directions to control about significant plot devices and events. Like say if Ravana discovers she is a cyborg and then suddenly Reth appears to her in a dream and tells her to commit suicide."

"That was a writer's decision?"

"To some extent, the brilliance of Nightmare is that so much of it is invented from the contestant's mind. Makes everything much more believable."

"Do you think we'd be able to get the Doctor alone with this label?"

"We might be able to request it. But I expect that in the dreamshare procedure it will be in the same room as the Doctor. We could barricade the room, detach him from the device and get out of there via teleport."

Clara sighed, rubbing her forehead. "I still don't get why we can't just teleport in there now."

"We don't know where they are. And if we teleport in the middle of the Doctor being actively recorded and under the dreamshare, disconnecting him could kill him. But if we wait until the viewing, it will all be set up on the demo, he won't be fully under and it will be easier to disconnect him without risking his life."

"You know a lot about this."

"Ex-boyfriend's favorite show. He's taken me to a couple of live viewings. But that was several thousand years ago for me. I'm a different man now."

"I'm too tired to question all of that, because it doesn't make sense and my head hurts."

"You can go on to bed, I think I have enough information to fill out these apps. Tomorrow we'll go over to the FNMC so we can be acquainted with a club. And they'll help us with the exam."

"We aren't taking it tomorrow are we?"

"No, you aren't ready."

"Right, going to bed then. I hope you got two bedrooms, because I'm not sharing."

"Go sleep, I'll be here on the couch."

"Right, good night."

"Good night, Impossible girl."


	10. Brain Damage

The Doctor felt everything. From the small ship breaking apart, to the mind probe being torn from his skull. He felt as it ripped pieces of him out. He couldn't stop screaming. He heard Samant apologizing, but it wasn't her fault. They were under attack and the Doctor was limp on the floor, screaming. He felt her sag beside him. He heard Raoul yelling at her. He felt her rise and attempt to fix the damage. They had no idea how severe the damage was. The Doctor quieted as Samant sealed the wound and placed a neck brace on him. His mind failed to recognize his own screaming as the ship rocked again. He was shutting down. The damage to his brain was too much for him to cope with. At least the probe was gone. It was finally safe to sleep. He shut his eyes and the world turned to black.

Then the world stuttered and flickered. His eyes were closed, he could feel that. His brain throbbed with agony, he felt that was well. He couldn't hear Samant nor Raoul anymore, but he did hear voices. He couldn't focus on them, his head hurt too much. Visions and images flickered across his visual cortex and he tried to make sense of it all. The black turned to red, the red pixelated and dissolved like shattered glass back into the darkness. Rainbows spilled forward like a spiderweb creating itself. The tiny fractals of color became light and then smoothed into gray fuzz. The feeling of damaged and missing brain tissue dissolved, replaced by a chest on fire. It burned and hurt, as if someone decided to dig around in his chest cavity with a spoon. He moaned and a black blur leaned over him. It touched his face. The Doctor jerked from its prodding fingers and then cried as the sudden movement caused a spike of pain in his head.

"How is he awake?" a voice asked, something from behind him. He couldn't see who said it.

"Up the dosage," the blur in front of him ordered.

"No...more...drugsh," the Doctor slurred. He could feel a needle push into him and tears escaped from his eyes as they closed.

"How can he speak?" a far away voice asked.

The Doctor did not fall asleep. He was awake, he knew he was awake. He just couldn't open his eyes. He tried and then screamed as his entire body was forced forward. A thousand small sharp things dug themselves into his body. The flashes flickered in front of his closed eyes. He saw Raoul and Samant thrown forward and then back. The visions came to a sudden halt and darkness once again resumed until he slowly opened his eyes again. He could see Samant above him, laying on the ceiling with purple blood that covered her body. Her mouth was forced open in a permanent scream, even though all the Doctor could hear was the silence. The utter silence.

Plip, plip. Plip, plip. The Doctor watched in amazement as red-orange blood pulled itself away from his nose, floated up to the ceiling and mixed with the purple blood. The pain within his skull slowly throbbed into unbearable agony and again the Doctor screwed his eyes shut and screamed.

He sucked in a deep breath and then choked on the air, he eyes flew open. A gray stone slab pulled forward before his eyes, moving quickly over him. The Doctor took another deep breath and slowly looked around. Quickly he realized it was him that was moving, not the ceiling. He gritted his teeth as his body jerked. He looked down at his body. His body was broken. His clothes were gone and most of his skin too. All he could see was his bright red-orange blood and bits of metal things sticking out of his body.

"Careful," a gravely voice warned.

The Doctor slowly turned his head towards the voice and a reptilian creature looked back. It was about five feet tall with gray leathery skin. It's golden snake eyes glared back and it's long snout opened to reveal several rows of sharp white teeth. It wore the dreaded white lab coat and the rest of its body seemed to be more humanoid. On its hands it had three fingers with sharp claws and a thumb that was placed at the center of its wrist that bore no claw.

"It is awake," a voice smoother than the first reptile.

The Doctor turned to see another one of the creatures that seemed to be shorter than the first and its skin seemed a little smoother.

"And it appears to be listening," the first replied.

The Doctor opened his mouth to speak, he wanted ask 'where am I? Who are you?' but his mouth didn't seem to want to work. He slowly got his mouth open, but it locked in place and he couldn't close it, his lips were frozen in place, he couldn't move them, he felt them. They were cracked and the bottom one was split.

"Ah," was all the Doctor could manage, "Ah...aah," He couldn't move his mouth, it was like there was a weight on his tongue, he couldn't move it, he couldn't move his jaw nor his lips to match the questions bubbling forth. "Mmm," he closed his mouth too late to make the 'mm' sound in 'am'. His eyes jerked from the first reptile to the second in sudden panic. He tried to lift his arm only to find it strapped to the table they wheeled him down on. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. The brain damage was more severe than he had first thought.

"It appears to be unable to speak," the second reptile said.

The Doctor flopped his head over as if it were made out of jelly. He flopped it back the other way to say 'no, you're wrong, I can speak' but only moans escaped his lips. He could feel his hearts' beats skittering in his chest. He was panicking, he had to calm down and think everything through.

"You stupid old man."

"Ah!" the Doctor called out. He saw her, he turned his head and he saw her standing by a door, but the aliens didn't seem to notice. They didn't stop, just kept pushing him down the endless hall of stone. The rolling table jerked as the wheels rolled down the uneven floor. The Doctor screwed his eyes shut as his body protested in a spike of the agony.

He coughed and then his eyes opened. His table was pushed against the wall. He was still strapped in, but his bloody body had been cleaned and the metal bits removed. His body was slowly trying to heal the damage to his brain. It was taking too long, he didn't know where he was, Samant and Raoul were gone. Aliens he had never seen before had captured him. But the room he was left in was empty, save for him and his table on wheels. His eyes wandered around the room. The walls were made of stone, the floor, stone, the air smelled and tasted wrong. At the moment he was too damaged to figure out why.

"Ah...kah...mmmaah," the Doctor focused all of his energy on getting his mouth to work right. He knew the English words he wanted to say, but his mouth didn't close when he told it to and wouldn't open right either. His tongue had lost nearly all ability to move.

"And how are you going to manage that?"

The Doctor looked up in surprise.

"Ah...mmm," the Doctor replied in shock. Leaning against the opposite wall from him stood Amelia Pond. His forehead furrowed in confusion, "Ah...ahm...ih...ah?" he asked her. He studied her and realized he couldn't figure out how old she was, he couldn't discern anything about her except the one true fact that it was Amelia Pond standing before him. He sighed sadly as he realized. "Ah...ah...ih...mah...ahm."

"That may be so, or perhaps you are just dreaming about me, raggedy man?" Amy suggested.

"Ah...mmm...aaah...ah," the Doctor tried to reply.

"Yes, Doctor, you are right about that. It is rather funny."

"Ffff...ah?"

"The very fact that you're hallucinating me. It is funny when you think about it."

"Mmm." The Doctor clumsily shook his head 'no'.

"Oh, but it is, when you think about it. The question you should be asking is, why you are hallucinating me?"

"Ah...ah...aaahff."

"She is safe, Doctor, but that isn't why you are seeing my face."

The Doctor's eyes widened and he directed his senses inward, he searched for chemicals that could be affecting his mind. None, the sedative and others had worn off. The damage to his brain was strictly in his cerebellum, diminishing his fine motor skills and his ability to move his mouth properly.

"Aah?" the Doctor asked, it didn't make sense.

"Perhaps it is the trauma of your friends' crashing their ship?" Amy suggested.

"Mmm," the Doctor disagreed. He remembered his head was strapped to the chair for extra protection, his head was okay except at the back where the damage was severe and still painful with the throbbing.

"It is interesting that the mind probe was placed specifically to record your dreams, but when it was torn out it only damaged the cerebellum."

"Aah...ihh...ah...ehff."

"Not damaged," Amy smiled at him.

"Ahh mmm?"

"Why else would you be seeing a hallucination?"

"Mm...ahhm...aahmm...eeh...mmm...uh...mm...ihm." The Doctor's eyes shifted to the ceiling as he tried to work it out. Why was he hallucinating? His visual cortex should have had bits of the mind probe in it, but only his cerebellum was damaged. It didn't make sense. The drugs were out of his system and the new aliens whom had found him didn't give him anything else (thank goodness). His head didn't collide with anything when the ship crashed. Why was he hallucinating? Perhaps he knew what it was, maybe there was something was stopping him from remembering? Maybe his brain was trying to tell him something and maybe that was why he was hallucinating. His brain was trying to tell him something.

"Look for anything that doesn't ring true," Amy told him, she opened her mouth to speak but suddenly the vision of her flickered. He couldn't hear what she was saying. She blurred and refocused. The Doctor's head spiked with pain before Amy disappeared and standing in her place was a ragged bloodied version of Raoul.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and tried to say, 'Not another one', instead it came out like this, "Mmm...aah...aahmm...aah...ahm."

"Doctor? What's happened to you?" Raoul asked as he came close and began undoing the straps that held him to the table.

The Doctor flopped his head from side to side. "Mmmm," he warned Raoul. Raoul didn't understand and the Doctor only sagged into him when Raoul tried to help him sit up. "Mmmm," the Doctor told him, in the same uncoordinated motion of shaking his head 'no'.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Ah...ih...aaah...buh." The Doctor smiled at a new sound he managed to make with his nearly paralyzed mouth.

"You can't speak?"

"Mmm," the Doctor growled, but dropped his head down and then flopped it back as he confirmed, "Ah."

"Okay, we can fix that right?"

"Mmm...aaah."

"Okay, I now declare 'Mm' to be 'no' and 'aah' to be 'yes'."

"Aah," the Doctor rolled his eyes, as that was what he meant to begin with.

"Can you stand?"

"Mmm."

"Okay that makes things a little tricky."

"Aah...buh," the Doctor looked down down, but Raoul didn't follow, didn't understand.

"Buh? What does that mean?"

"Aaahmmm...buh," the Doctor tried again, he raised his eyes to Raoul and then looked down at the table he was still on. He tried moving his arm to point at the table. But he missed all together and instead his arm bumped into Raoul's chest.

"What?"

The Doctor tried again, he raised his arm up and then let it drop onto the table. Then with great difficulty lifted up his hand and point to the door.

"The table?"

"Aaah."

"It rolls! Oh, right, maybe you should lay back down. This one is just for support okay?"

"Aah," the Doctor sighed as Raoul helped him lay back down and strapped the middle strap across his waist to help secure him. The ride back down the hall didn't hurt nearly as bad as the first time. But the Doctor still found himself gasping and squeezing his eyes shut tight.

"Buh," the Doctor said as he opened his eyes. Raoul had come to a stop in a cold room. The Doctor could see a steep stairway. How were they going to do steps? He didn't know. "Mmmm!" the Doctor growled as Raoul began to re strap the restraints.

"I'm sorry, it is the only way I'm going to get you down there."

"Ah?" the Doctor asked.

"I can lower this table almost all the way down. I'll slowly push you slash pull you down the stairs. You have to trust me."

"Buh! Ah...buh...eh!" the Doctor disagreed.

"Look, it is either trust me or let the Solevs dissect you, which one do you prefer?"

"Mmm," the Doctor growled but then sighed, "Aaah."

"I'll be careful, also it is how I got Samant down there."

"Aahmaah?" the Doctor asked hopefully.

"Is that you trying to say her name?"

"Aaah."

"Okay, I'll keep that in mind. She's hurt, but I give her a week to bounce back. Best thing about us is that we heal fast. Alright, here we go."

Raoul lowered the Doctor's table and then slowly and carefully pushed him. The Doctor held his breath as the first two wheels rolled off of the floor, it was only a couple of inches that the Doctor's table fell before it caught on the edge of the first step. It still jolted him.

"Oh wait a moment," Raoul said.

"Mmm!" the Doctor growled at him as he heard Raoul shift around behind him. If Raoul let go...the Doctor didn't want to think about how much it would hurt if the table tipped up.

"Lift your head up," Raoul told him.

With a grunt the Doctor obeyed. He felt Raoul push fabric under his head and the Doctor relaxed into the make shift pillow. That would help, the Doctor helped.

"Aaaaah...aaah," the Doctor told him.

"You're welcome," Raoul responded without thinking. The Doctor braced himself as Raoul carefully lowered the Doctor down the stairs.


	11. Fangirls Ruin Everything

Chapter 11 Fangirls ruin everything

Clara couldn't help the nervousness that filled her stomach with fluttering butterflies. Her skin itched with the paint and make up he insisted she'd wear. He'd taken her to an hair stylist that morning to completely redo her hair with magenta and indigo highlights.

"No one in this town leaves it like that. Especially not fanovel authors."

So she had it all done up into a tight bun with bits of colored hair defying gravity and hanging around her hair. Jack got her bright green contacts that seemed to glow in the shadows. He said it would help to hide her 21st self from Nightmare. It was agreed that Clara took up a fake name and identity just in case the Doctor dreamed about her. When they discussed it Clara pointed out the problem if the Doctor dreamed about Jack.

"While that would be amazing, it would mean we're screwed. How old did you say he was?"

"Twelve-hundred and something."

"He was nine-hundred and something last I saw him. There is a chance that he won't dream about me. Hopefully. Besides I'm already well known in these parts, just about anyone would be able to see through my 'fake ID' if I had one."

After the make over he took her shopping as well. She didn't know what she was wearing, nor what it all meant, she just went with it and hoped that whatever Jack was doing that it would work.

When they entered the glass and metal building, Clara was amazed. It had the grandeur of a cathedral, but instead of being a church it was a library. The FNMC's head quarters for this side of Ragelssi. They had to go through security to get in and when they didn't have the right Ids they were almost thrown out. When Jack showed them the translucent card Clara picked up from the Delchimsa they called the president of FNMC.

To Clara's complete surprise Jo/Dave entered into the room. Dave looked like he was asleep while Jo's jaw dropped. She touched Dave's face until he woke up and he woke with a jump.

"Why are you here?!" Dave asked, horrified.

"To come to our work place!" Jo looked over at one of the security officers. He was a large alien that resembled The Thing from Fantastic Four. Only he had six eyes rainbow eyes that scrutinized Jack.

"Jo, calm down," Jack told her.

"How can I calm down?! You promised a week!"

Clara smiled, this is where she came in. She unhooked herself from Jack's arm and stepped forward, "You're Josavinidsianeophatii, aren't you?"

Jo looked away from Jack to Clara. "Yes, yes I am, who are you?"

"I'm Ozia Ezinezkoa, Jack has told me so much about you and your group. I am really excited to be here."

"What?"

"I've only seen a couple of episodes, but I swear I am going to binge watch it tonight. I have a problem with researching shows once I've gotten into them. I absolutely have to know everything. All the possibilities. I had no idea there was such a huge fandom for Nightmare though."

Jo turned back to Jack, "Jack, who is this woman?"

"Jo, Dave, meet Ozia, my wife." Jack stepped forward and hooked his arm around her's.

It took Jo a minute to realize what he was saying and then a smile crept forward onto her mouth."Jack you sly dog!" she exclaimed, "all that rough talk of pirates and really you just wanted in on the action! and this pretty thing...married, pah! I don't believe it! Do you believe it?" Jo asked Dave.

"Hardly," Dave stared at Jack, "Hart will kill her."

"He won't, I've got everything under control."

"It is that sort of thing that is going to get her killed," Dave warned.

"Hart, who is Hart? What is he talking about?" Clara asked as she hung off Jack's arm like a love smitten teenager.

"Don't worry Ozia," Jack soothed.

Clara rolled her eyes and said,"Don't Ozia me, who is this Hart person?"

Jack sighed and glared a look at Jo and Dave.

"Oh um, he is no one compared to a beautiful young aspiring author like you." Jo/Dave scrambled over and took Clara's arm and waved off Dave's boyfriend. "What Genre did you say you liked?"

"Horror, hurt and comfort. I'm completely new to Nightmare and all my works have been outside of fanovels."

"You, my friend are from a popular genre. I'd love to read some of your originals, but I'm afraid I don't have the time. I can help with fanovels and plots though, it is what I live for. I have had a few of my own plots appear on Nightmare. So we'll get you there. From what fandom are you visiting us?"

"Ancient Earth Entertainment," Jack answered for her, "20th, 21st century. She studies and teaches ancient Earth Literature and culture."

"So if we had some time traveling plots to Earth 20th century, you could figure out all the technical stuff."

"I guess."

"Well that's not very promising, okay for an example, say if my favorite character Ravana tried to escape from her over protective and dare I say evil boyfriend and used a vortex manipulator and ended up in 2013 Earth what would happen?"

"Well it depends on where she would appear. Does she know any Earth languages?"

"She's got a translator built in to the cyborg tech."

"Oh that's important, is the cyborg tech visible?"

"No, why does that matter?"

"21st century Earth did not have any cyborgs, at least not the kind we have today. She'd be spotted and assumed to be an actress or as alien and a threat. Depending on where she landed different forces, such as the military, could be called in. The FBI, UNIT, etc. But if she could blend in with the humans she might be able to survive a little longer without being taken out by the military."

"You're hired."

"What?"

"You are a resource bank, you have information that is over two thousand years old. What sort of clothes would she need to wear to blend in?"

"Normal clo-," Clara stopped herself seeing Jack's expression, "I mean jeans and t-shirt would be okay. Again depends on her location and what time of year it is. If it's January and she's landed in London she's going to get cold...well, I don't know, does she get cold? But everyone else will be wearing long sleeves and jumpers."

"Might I suggest that your stories include time travel to 20th slash 21st century Earth? It is exactly this kind of information that is going to get you far in Nightmare. Let me direct you to our database." Jo/Dave began leading her away from Jack and she glanced up at him.

"I'll see you in a bit, darling," Jack smiled, Clara rolled her eyes.

"Our database has everything that is canon up to date along with contestant bios and their stories so far. As an author our job is to write potential future plot developments. We are a little bit different in our style of fanovels because we don't ever go back into the past. Well almost never, we have special cases of Dreamception."

Clara giggled at the term until she realized Jo was completely serious, "A contestant dreaming within the dream, err Nightmare."

"Precisely. They're trickier to manage, but it is possible. And we only get one or two Dreamceptions a contestant. Super rare, I encourage you to not write Dreamceptions. Also Fixits basically don't exist, you can't rewrite a scene that has already happened. You can write an in between scene, but those are pretty rare. The best thing you can do is write future plots. Get it?"

"Yes."

"Alright, well we'll leave you to it. In a couple of hours though we get a preview of Nightmare's newest contestant. We are super psyched."

Clara gulped, knowing it was probably the Doctor, but she forced a smile, "Yeah of course, totally can't wait."

"We'll see you then." Jo/Dave let her be and Clara started her task of becoming acquainted with the Database and began plotting plots that made her stomach turn. She lost track of time as she scrolled through, learning about Ravana's 'past' and she wondered how much of it was true, or just in the Nightmare.

"Ozia."

Clara looked up to see Jack, he had a grave expression on his face. He nodded to the doors, "It is time for the viewing."

"It's the Doctor, isn't it?"

"It might not be."

"But it probably is," Clara sighed and saved her work to the account tagged ImpossibleOZIA. She and Jack entered the theater styled room and took a seat in the back. Clara gulped as the lights dimmed and the screen popped on. Dramatic music played and text appeared on the screen.

'WELCOME to the NIGHTMARE.' The text disappeared behind a montage of contestants screaming, running, crying, jumping with explosions and monsters. Suddenly it all stopped and turned black. The black faded to a red blur and slowly came into focus. Clara gulped at the sudden panoramic view of Arcadia.

"That's Gallifrey," Clara whispered.

"What?" Jack whispered back. Someone shushed them as a blast of energy smashed into a snow capped mountain. The camera pulled forward and turned to reveal the Eleventh Doctor. A girl suddenly screamed 'Help!' her blood clung to her red robes.

Clara gripped Jack's arm as the clip played out. The ending scene had the Doctor waving a hand in front of his face. All the while the Delchimsa spoke to him, saying, "It's not a hologram."

The Doctor replied with, "Thought not." The scene flashed back to the Doctor running through a field of red grass with the Tardis in the background with white text littering the view. 'The Doctor's Nightmare...Seven Days' and then the clip ended. Clara struggled to breathe properly as the images from the Doctor's past replayed in her mind and the very thought of him forced to relive it now was abhorrent and evil.

Jack logged themselves out and bade a hasty, "later" to Jo/Dave. He helped to get Clara out of there and back into their flat. As soon as they were alone Clara fell into a fit of anger, hatred and worry.

"How dare they make him..."

"I know."

"They're going to tear him apart."

"It is what they do."

"We have to help him. You can trace back the signal, save him, please save him!"

"I could, but you know what would happen, if we just unhooked him like that, the damage could kill him."

"So we have to sit here and make up stories that will traumatize, not only his mind but all the others suffering!"

"It is the only way to get close to him without severely damaging his brain."

"And what about his mind?"

"We have to hope that he'll hold out."

"Seven days before the full force of his nightmares are revealed!"

"You need to complete at least ten plots by then. And when the Doctor is exposed we have to write for him. Then we have about twenty days to get accepted for the live viewing."

"And it is up to me to write horror stories about him suffering?"

"Yes..."

Clara gritted her teeth, growled in frustration and then forced a calm over herself, "Promise me."

"Promise what?"

"After we save the Doctor and the Tardis is fixed you'll help us dismantle Nightmare."

"I..."

"Swear it!"

"Fine, I swear to help destroy Nightmare."


	12. Poor Leatre

Chapter 12 Poor Leatre

"Aahmaah," the Doctor tried to say. Samant laid on a similar table lowered close to the floor, a stole lab coat covered her. The journey to the bottom of the stairs were nerve racking. The Doctor was tense the whole time. And once the table slipped from Raoul's hands sending the Doctor's table jittering Down the last five steps and crashed into a wall. The Doctor escaped from the crash unscathed, but it had been a terrifying ordeal. Now he was next to Samant in a small tunnel hidden from view. Raoul explained that they were in the Sewer's beneath the Solev's medical facility. That only half explained the smell.

"Doctor...?" Samant asked as she slowly woke up.

"Aah, ah ih mm," the Doctor told her.

Samant turned her head to look at Raoul and winced as it hurt. Raoul sat between Samant and the Doctor. He held her hand in his. "Raoul?" She looked back at the Doctor, concern littered her face.

"The damage to his brain is making it hard for him to control his body," Raoul explained tiredly.

"So he can't-"

"Aaaah," the Doctor tried to tell her.

"Sorry," she spoke this time directly to the Doctor, "you can't speak?"

"Eh," the Doctor half shrugged.

"He understands, but he can't move his mouth to form words properly, at the moment. He thinks it is temporary though."

"I am so sorry," Samant told the Doctor.

"Mmm ah oh fff...ah," the Doctor growled at this inability to form words. The Doctor gave up and shook/ flopped his head to say, 'no'.

"But-"

"Mmm!"

"That means 'no'," Raoul explained.

"Aaah."

"And that means yes."

"Ah ih ah mm," the Doctor tried to speak.

Samant looked at Raoul to translate, but he shrugged. The Doctor sighed sadly as they clearly could not understand him.

The rested for another hour while Raoul planned out how and where to steal medicine and food when suddenly they heard sounds.

"The crashing sound came from here," a Solev's voice echoed.

"You can see that something banged into this wall, those scratches are fresh," said another.

Samant and the Doctor looked up at Raoul in horror.

"What do I do?" Raoul whispered.

"Mmm...Aahmaah!" the Doctor ordered. He flopped a hand at her and motioned for them to go."

"I don't think I can get you both out of here."

"Mmmm...Ahm!" the Doctor frantic motioned for them to go.

"But what about you?"

"Aaah buh fff mmm. Aahmaah mmm!"

"I'm sorry!"

"Aah mmm, mmm!"

Raoul pushed Samant away from the thundering feet of Solevs. The Doctor could hear Samant arguing with Raoul. He willed her to be quiet and for them to get away. He grunt when a sharp light blinded him.

"We found the MMH," a Solev spoke too loudly as he continued to shine his torch into the Doctor's eyes.

"Eh...oh," the Doctor told him.

The Solev stared at the Doctor and then asked, "Did you just say hello?"

"Aaah," the Doctor replied nodding like a rag doll. He clumsily held his hand up to the light. "Aah mm buh. Mm buh!"

"Oh sorry." The Solev moved the light away from the Doctor's face.

It took him a few seconds before he could make note of the slightly blue markings around the Solev that nearly blinded him. By the time the other Solevs arrived, the Doctor had memorized the blue marked Solev and could distinguish him from the others. The Blue Marked one turned to the others gathering around the Doctor to reclaim him.

"Omnoontilk, this one might not be just a dumb pet," Blue Marks suggested.

"Oheh!" the Doctor exclaimed, "Ah aahmm uhmm buh eh!"

'Omnoontilk', the Doctor noted did not have the blue mark but a slightly gray-green mark in the center of his forehead, responded by stepping forward. "He just, was he trying to say something?"

"Aah!" the Doctor nodded.

"He understands us," Blue Marks said.

"Ah buh ah umm bu ahm buh!"

"The initial scans were wrong. It isn't that he developed without those parts of his brain, but that he was damaged."

The Doctor nodded, "Aaah. Ah aahm fff aah. Ih aah ah bah ih aah."

Omnoontilk leaned over the Doctor, "We have no intention of harming you and your comrades. We want to help you. Your ship crashed a mile from our city. We've not encountered aliens before."

The Doctor did not relax, but nodded his understanding. He didn't trust them, but he really didn't have a choice at the moment. They tried to prove their loyalty by leaving him unrestrained, except for the one strap that went across his middle to keep him from falling off the table. They used a hidden lift which could have saved the Doctor from the terror of rolling down steps and giving away their position, had Raoul known of it. He just hoped now that Raoul and Samant didn't do anything stupid and that what Blue Marks said was the truth.

He tried to talk to them as they rolled him back down the hall, but they simply could not understand his sounds. The Doctor gave up and practiced his sounds down through the Alphabet.

"Ah, buh, uh, eh, fff, uh, hhhuh, ih, uh, uh, ih, mmm, mm, oh, ooh, puh! Puh!" the Doctor smiled up at Blue Marks.

"Puh?" Blue Marks asked.

"Puh! Puh! Pah, Poh, Peh, Pooh!" the Doctor laughed then he went back to practicing. "Uh, uh, hhhhhuh, buh, uh, vuh. Hah! Vuh! Vuh! Vah, voh, veh, vuh, vooh." He grinned up at Blue Marks and Omnoontilk before focusing again. "Wah, woh, wooh, weh, wih. Eh, wah, hhhh. Mah-oh ah mmmoh mmmwah Ah buh uh-hhh. Meh ba-mmm woh ooh ih wih mmm."

By the time the Doctor finished his little song his journey on the table came to an end as he was presented with a bed. Blue Marks and Omnoontilk helped transfer him over. Moving his whole body painfully reminded him that he had been impaled by many small bits of metal and that frankly his body did not like being moved. However the change from the hard metal table over to a fluffy comfy warm surface helped the Doctor to immediately relax.

"Vilthod, you stay here while we review his scans. As soon as we locate his friends we will return them to this room," Omnoontilk told Blue Marks before he left.

"Vih-haa," the Doctor tried as 'Vilthod' took a seat in front of the Doctor's bed. "Vih-haa, Vih-haa," the Doctor repeated until Vilthod caught on.

"Are you trying to say my name."

The Doctor nodded. His new bed was raised slightly, giving his head and neck more support and making it easier to nod. "Vih-haa."

"It is Vilthod."

"Ah moh. Ah uhahm ah ahohmmbuh."

"What?"

The Doctor sighed and shook his head.

"Can you tell me your name?"

The Doctor thought about it before he tried it out, "Buh, buh, bah, boh." He shook his head and tried again, "Amm Mih, hhhmmm Baboh oh Amm Mih. Hmmm." He shrugged and then looked back at Vilthod, "Buh Bah-boh."

"Buh Babo?"

The Doctor sighed and rolled his eyes, "Mmm, oh eh ehmuhff."

"Enough?"

"Ehmuhff," the Doctor tried again.

"Vilthod!" another Solev came into the room, "These aliens won't listen to me, you try. Since you seem to be able to speak alien."

"Babo, I'll be right back,' Vilthod told the Doctor.

The Doctor nodded and Vilthod and the other Solev disappeared. He hoped his friends were okay. While he waited for Vilthod to come back he lifted up his arms. He could do that. He wiggled his fingers. He could do that. He tried to clap his hands together, but they missed. He tried again, but it didn't work. He couldn't. He could see his hands, he could feel his hands. But his hand-eye coordination was gone.

"There is a good chance that it'll just kill it."

The Doctor put his arms down as he heard another two Solev speaking.

"Or it will be healed and can tell us why there are pirates at our door!" an old voice growled. "Bring in Oresar and one of his pets."

"This is a bad idea."

The two voices faded down the hall, but the Doctor's hearts were in his throat. He had to get out of here. He slowly made himself sit up. His balance was mangled, it was hard, but he managed to stay upright as he sung his legs over the edge of the bed. Just as he made it up to his feet another pair of Solev's entered into the room. One was clearly older and in charge and the second had a faint red mark on the end of his snout. That one carried something in a small reflective box.

"Get back onto the bed," the older one ordered.

The Doctor didn't listen. He tried to move forward.

"We can't perform the procedure with it standing," Red Mark stated.

"Don't you think I know that Oresar?" the older one snapped back. "Xebares, get it on the bed!"

Another Solev came into the room and 'helped' the Doctor onto the bed.

"Wah puhoh-hh-buh?" the Doctor slurred, "Eh mm oh!"

Xebares quickly restrained the Doctor with straps he had failed to notice.

"Ahpp! Ahpp! Eh mm oh! Wah ooih? Vih-haa! Aahmaah! Ahoh!" The Doctor tried to fight back, but Xebares pressed the soft side of his claw to the Doctor's head, forcing him back down.

"Proceed, Oresar," the old one in charge commanded.

"Poh-eeh wih wah?!"

The Doctor's blood ran cold as Xebares forced the Doctor's mouth open. Oresar pulled out a small bottle and emptied a single copper pill onto the Doctor's tongue. Xebares 'helped' the Doctor to swallow the pill. The Doctor used all of his tricks to evade swallowing the drug. But Xebares seemed to know them all. The Doctor went as far as to use his bypass system, unfortunately the pill melted in his mouth and Xebares did not let go until the Doctor gave up and swallowed the damn thing. He didn't feel any immediate effects. The small dose just seemed to slowly slide down his throat and into this stomach. The taste in his mouth wasn't bad either, it tasted like a flavored syrup.

Xebares finally let the Doctor take a shaky breath and Oresar pulled out the reflective box again. He set it on the Doctor's chest and activated the box. The Doctor stared as it slowly opened. Out of the box slithered a snake like creature. It had four tiny claws close to it's shiny black head and a Mohawk styled spikes that ran from the top of it's head down the spine of it's long tail.

"Wah ih ah?" the Doctor asked.

"This is poor little Leatre, good bye my friend," Oresar said sadly as the creature lifted up it's head and seemed to sniff the air. It turned once it got the scent it searched for and looked right into the Doctor's eyes.

"Ih boh haah ooh booh ih. Puh-iiiih," the Doctor begged.

The old Solev nodded to Xebares and once again he took hold of the Doctor's head. He forced his head back and mouth open. The Doctor struggled, but couldn't move much as the little alien serpent climbed into the Doctor's mouth. The Doctor jerked and tried to pull away and close his mouth but the creature forced itself onto his tongue and nipped at the residue left by the pill on the Doctor's tongue. The Doctor screamed and then choked as the creature followed the trail of sticky syrupy drug down the Doctor's throat. His body jerked as the fibers of the spikes from the creature's spine rubbed against the Doctor's throat. The fibers were coated with something and that something stung and burned. The Doctor choked and gagged, but it did not stop the serpent's descent into the Doctor's stomach. The Doctor screamed again as he felt it moving, chewing and traveling through him. His body couldn't take this. He couldn't do it. He couldn't do it and stay sane, so his brain shut down and the Doctor became still as he passed out.


	13. The Doctor Dreams

Hello! A new chapter *YAY*. We are getting close to the end. We have maybe three chapters ISH left to go. Then if everything goes well I'll finish writing The Veiled Children *YAY*. So I love you all. Also please review. Reviews always encourage me to update more.

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"Goodbye."

"Goodbye."

"Raggedy Man goodbye"

"No, Grandfather!"

"Goodbye, Sweetie."

"Run-"

"Run you-"

"Run you clever boy and remember me."

"Save him, you save everyone."

"Please, don't make me go back."

"Hello Doctor, it is so nice to meet you."

"Stop me falling!"

"Stooooop!" the Doctor cried. He couldn't handle the voices and images flashing before him. He didn't want to think about these things. These people he loved and their deaths. He just wanted it all to stop.

Then it did stop. The Doctor's head jerked up and his eyes flashed open. The bright light hurt his eyes and he tried to stand up, only to discover that he was held in place by metal cuffs on his chair.

"No, no, no, no, no, no," he cried as he recognized his new location. The Pandorica. How long had he been there? Sitting and dreaming?! He didn't know. One of the sensors scrambled his time sense. He couldn't be sure of anything. He struggled to breathe to drag in deep breaths of air. He was shaking. He remembered what happened. The box opened and an empty seat waited for him, to entrap him while his Tardis was burning with River trapped inside.

"AMY! RORY!" he shouted. Hoping that maybe they could hear him, but knowing they couldn't. An image of Amy's pale features jumped forward.

"What? What happened? Rory, I remember Rory." The Doctor searched his memories but everything was foggy and the past haunted him with faces he failed to save. He didn't want to think about that. But what happened to Amy?! Was she okay? Another image of an Angel, a weeping Angel stealing Amy away from him jumped forward.

"That hasn't happened yet," the Doctor whispered. His head hurt. How long had he been here?

"AAAAAH!" the Doctor screamed. The bad smell of Dalek laser burns reached his nostrils. His chest was in agony. His right heart laid in his chest, dead. His left heart struggled to keep him going. The Pandorica was shaking and spinning. It made him feel sick then a bright blinding light over took his prison and the Doctor felt himself rip apart. Then it stopped and his body went back together and then inside out and upside down.

"Aah!" he opened his eyes and looked down at himself. "'ays, sihew ah 'ays. Wha?" He looked up and found himself back on the hospital bed back at the medical center of the Solev city.

"Doctor?" Samant took the Doctor's hand. To his absolute relief the restraints were gone.

"Wha happen?" the Doctor asked and then smiled slightly as he sent his senses inward, "Uh bain bamash is hea'in."

"I'm sorry."

The Doctor looked up to see Vilthod. He was in the room as well as Raoul.

"At ssnay, someone name Ohehsah attaheh me."

"That's not exactly what happened," Vilthod began to explain, "The creature is called a Fsotontirp. Even though it causes stomach cramps and in some patients allergic reactions to the fibers on its spines...When digested alive they accelerate healing."

"bibbn' fee aye ah oo mee," the Doctor mumbled.

"But you are speaking better now, the Fsotontirp helped."

"Ah, ih bib. Shoob ay ah east a wee. How on was I aseeb?"

"Two days," Raoul answered. The Doctor looked at him. Raoul was tired, he hadn't slept at all. He could see that.

"Wha happen waye-eh I was ou?"

"They gave one to Samant," Raoul looked away as he gritted his teeth.

"Buh she's be'ah now? Ooh fee be'ah, Samant?" the Doctor asked.

Samant stretched and nodded, "I feel brand new. Though frankly I don't remember the snake thing. So don't feel bad!" Samant told Raoul." She gave him a hug.

"Aye, now ah we ah mos'ee hea'b. We neeb finb a way oo 'all uh Shabow Po'ahmashun."

"The Shadow Proclamation?" Vilthod asked.

"Ehs, wai'." The Doctor stared at Vilthod, "Ou saib ou haven meh a'iens befoh. How boo ou know ah is wha I mehn?"

Samant and Raoul turned to look at Vilthod, but before he could answer Xebares and the old Solev returned into the room with Badger Pirates.

"No," the Doctor heard both Samant and Raoul gasp.

The Doctor sighed, he wasn't that surprised. He gave a disappointed look over to Vilthod. His expression was surprised, which confused the Doctor.

"Vilthod, you are dismissed," the old Solev ordered.

"Rangink, sir, what is going on? What are you doing?"

"These three are wanted by the Delchimsa herself."

"Aye bib ou ie?" the Doctor asked Vilthod.

"Because the humans on the southern continent don't know about us. We want to keep it that way. I didn't know if you knew the human colony or not. But Samant and Raoul talked about the Shadow Proclamation."

"Pfft, the Shadow Proclamation can't do anything about us," one of the pirates declared.

"Enough chatter, the Delchimsa is paying us good money to get that one back," the second pirate said, pointing to the Doctor. The second pirate stepped forward.

"No!" Samant jumped forward in a fatal attempt to protect the Doctor. The first pirate shot her with his pulsar gun and she disintegrated.

"Samant!" Raoul jumped forward, but Vilthod pushed him down just as a second shot hit where Raoul was standing. Raoul fell to the ground and turned back just in time to see Vilthod disappear and turn to ash, just like Samant.

"No! Ou bibn' have oo ih em!" the Doctor screamed. He found himself on his feet, even though he swayed a little.

"But it was very satisfying."

"I'm doubling our payment for finding your pets!" Rangink suddenly shouted. "Killing my own people was never part of the deal."

The Pirates turned around, but before they could aim their guns, more Solev's arrived with their own guns. They trained their weapons on to the pirates. The two froze.

"Very well," the first pirate agreed. He spoke into a com device and not four feet from them a shiny case materialized.

Xebares retrieved the case and confirmed the double payment. The First nodded to the Second as they shot the Doctor.

"Aaaah!" the Doctor screamed and everything turned dark.

Very slowly the Doctor woke up. He laid on his back and he stared up at metal ceiling. Slowly he sat up. Everything hurt, but it didn't surprise him. He scanned the new room he found himself in. It was a small 10x10 room and everything was made with the same shiny cold metal. He sat on a pile of duvets. It was the only thing in the cramped room that was remotely comfortable. To his right the Doctor found a toilet and to his right there was nothing but wall. In front of him there was a step up and a loose silver chain hung out from the wall. It snaked down the step wrapped itself around his ankle. When the Doctor leaned forward to trace the links he felt a pressure against his brain. He froze in horror. He lifted up a trembling hand and felt the back of his neck. A small bump presented itself and the Doctor's face crumpled in fury and despair.

"Aah!" he cried as all of the sudden electricity zapped him through the chain. "What?" The Doctor looked down as the slack in the chain began to tighten. The Doctor forced himself to his feet and followed the chain to the wall it pulled him toward. As soon as he stepped up the step the floor moved like a lift, lifting the Doctor up. The ceiling opened and delivered the Doctor into a dim empty room. The chain once again became slack, allowing the Doctor to step out of the lift and into the empty dark room.

"Welcome back."

Goosebumps ran up his arms as that sweet innocent voice spoke. He turned around and there stood Nss'a the Delchimsa.

"You've been a naughty boy, running away. My condolences. Poor Samant, killed as she tried to save you."

Rage pooled within the Doctor's hearts and he surged forward. But before he could reach her a second bolt of electricity zapped him from the chain around his ankle. It was set to a higher setting and it crashed him down to the ground. He laid there panting for air as the Delchimsa approached. She knelt in front of him and stroked his cheek with ice cold fingers. The Doctor jerked away from her touch and whispered a strangled, "No!" from his lips.

The Delchimsa smiled and gripped his temples with both of her fingers. The Doctor screamed and tried to fight her off as she forced herself into his mind.

"Haven't you done enough damage?!" he yelled at her as she appeared in his mind. A corridor of dusty old doors that stretched on for 1200 years appeared.

"Which memory should we awaken?" she asked him as she brushed her fingers against the doors, leaving tracks within the dust.

"Stop it," the Doctor winced as she threatened to break down the doors in his mind.

"Make me."

She opened a door and voices flooded out.

"I will never be able to see you."

"River you be a good girl and-"

"Enough!" the Doctor shouted and tackled the Delchimsa.

The Doctor's eyes opened. He was on the ground with the Delchmisa digging her fingers into his head. Her eyes were closed as she focused. With the last of the Doctor's strength he lifted his hands up to her head and slipped in. Her mind was dark with swirling black masses that seemed to cloud everything. The Doctor stepped into one of the masses and fell back. He choked on the rancid stench. The Delchimsa's mind was in utter disrepair. Broken and shattered beyond belief. He couldn't find any light nor any life. The Doctor knew she was just a child, even by her own species standards. It meant that she should not be this consumed by evil. The Doctor tried to navigate through and finally found a closed door. He knew he would regret this later. His body and mind wouldn't be able to deal with the strain. But the Delchimsa should not be in this such extreme neglect. Her poor mind. He pushed against the door. It did not open. He pounded and pushed. Nothing. The Doctor pulled light from one of his memories and pressed it against the door, this time it opened.

The Doctor was pulled in by the sudden swirling of memories, suppressed memories, as the Doctor realized. They were suppressed so they would not overwhelm the Delchimsa's mind. He closed the door on the way in, to protect Nss'a.

Immediately the Doctor was over whelmed by the images that laid underneath: a burning planet and a sea of dead bodies. Monsters that fed off of the living. A skeletal creature wrapped his arms around a small child. The shadow of the skeletal creature passed by, revealing hundreds of children that wept over the deaths of their loved ones. The creature took the children and locked them away into stasis. Everything became dark and light returned and Nss'a woke from her stasis tank. The room that held five hundred tanks now held less than fifty. Nss'a is led away and placed in a chair and strapped to it. She screamed and cried as the creature tortured her.

Suddenly the entire scene rewinds and the Doctor was pulled backward away from it. The whirl wind forced him through the door and it closed again, locking as it shut. The Doctor stumbled out of the Delchimsa's mind and thrown back into the small 10x10 room. His head connected with the toilet and he fell onto the duvets, knocked unconscious.

He woke up with a gasp as he was once again electrocuted. The chain pulled him back towards the lift part of his room. He had to quickly scramble to his feet to avoid a broken ankle. This time the lift takes him down. The wall finally opened up to a well lit room that included uncomfortable looking tables. The aliens with the strange coal black skin with what looked like sea green paint splattered onto their skin approached them. One, a male and the other a female, both with bald heads. They seized him and the chain fell from his ankle. They dragged him to a table and forced him down. He pushed against them and tried to kick them. A third alien stepped forward and pressed something against his neck.

It cut through his skin and connected with the mind probe and the Doctor gasped in surprise and pain. Tears escape as he is strapped down. He did not move, when he did, he screamed. He shook as the Delchimsa approached. She pushed his tears away with her hand.

"There, there, Doctor, you're going to be okay. You're going to take a little nap now."

"No, please."

"Shhh, you're going to show me your dreams."

"No!" he cried when he felt them push a sedative into his veins. His eyes closed shut.

The Doctor's eyes flew open and he jumped up from his prone position on the floor. His head spun as bright colorful lights flash before him. A familiar warm wheeze grabbed his attention and he looked around. He was in the Tardis. He reached out a trembling hand and touched the zig-zag plotter on the console.

The Doctor sighed in relief. It was real, all of it was real. He must have fallen asleep again at the console.

"There is only so many clues I can give you," a Scottish voice told him.

The Doctor turned to see Amelia Pond. She walked slowly up to the glass platform towards the Doctor.

"What?" the Doctor asked.

"You are dreaming Doctor," she faded into a mush of flesh with Rory weeping over her death. The Doctor's hand shook as he looked down at the sonic in his hands. It still pointed where she once stood.

"I'll get her back," the Doctor swore, "Wait...no- I already did...what?"

The Doctor stiffened as he realized, no, felt. He could feel it, pressing against his brain and the chemicals rushing up and down his veins, encouraging his broken mind to dream. He growled in fury, but positioned himself and closed his eyes. When he closed his eyes in the console room, they opened to the well lit room that held him captive with a machine accessing his dreams.

"We've never had a contestant do that before," the female alien muttered to another.

"Bet...you...didn't...expect...me...to...speak...either!" the Doctor gasped through the sedation.

"Top it up," the female ordered.

"He is at full dose already, another top off will send him into a coma."

"We'll have to find stronger drugs for this one. Unplug him and send him up."

They unplugged him from the machine and put him back into the lift. His body felt like jelly and he couldn't stay upright. He sat, mushed in the cubical as the lift returned him to his bed of duvets. He flopped over onto it and quietly rested. He drifted off to a peaceful dreamless sleep.

"Bang"

"Bump"

"Clink"

The Doctor slowly awoke from his two hour nap. It was the first real nap he had had since...oooh a long time. He had maybe a couple of hours of sleep several weeks ago after a rather tiring adventure with Clara. He really needed to make sure he got more sleep in between adventures. His lack of sleeping was becoming a weakness rather than a strength as it tended to be. The Doctor closed his eyes, to allow himself another few good minutes of Z's.

"CLANK"

The Doctor sat up suddenly. the banging and bumping sound thundered loudly towards him. He could feel it. The bumps sent vibrations through the walls. Something was coming his way, through the wall. The Doctor got to his tired feet and stood in a defensive position, ready to fight whatever that was coming for him now.

Suddenly a metal panel fell from the wall, hitting his head. He ducked down, the panel was thin and not that heavy. However, what followed crushed him to the floor.

"Sorry!" the weight apologized. The Doctor wheezed as the thing had winded him. The thing climbed off of the Doctor, pushed the panel away and quickly cut the chain with a pair of dwarf star alloy pliers. The Doctor moaned as he sat up and looked upon the face of the intruder.

"Raoul?"

"Yep, let's get out of here."

"Right!" the Doctor agreed with a smile.

Raoul and the Doctor escaped through the ventilation system. Until they came to a dead end. They had to retrace their steps until the floor gave out and dropped them twenty feet from the ceiling onto hot sticky sand. The Doctor pushed himself up to his feet. Havar stood on a floating platform with a microphone in his hand. The Doctor could see the rainbow filter of a force field around him. Raoul moaned as he slowly made himself get up.

"And now facing our unbeatable champion, I give you, the Doctor and Raoul the Halflahn!"

"What is this place?" the Doctor asked Raoul.

"Nightmare's very own replica of Earth's Colosseum," Raoul explained. The Audience cheered, even though the Doctor was unable to locate an audience. "It is all prerecorded before they broadcast. There is no way of surviving this. Nightmare's champion never ever leaves survivors. Ever."

"What?" the Doctor asked when a girl appeared. She couldn't have been more than five years of age. Raoul backed up as she approached them.

"She's just a girl."

"She's not, she's genetically engineered by the church, she is on loan as a part of her training."

"What?" the Doctor repeated. As she came closer the Doctor could make out her dark skin and black curly hair. "What is her name?"

"I don't know, but everyone call's her 'Death's Melody'."

"No!" the Doctor shouted as the little girl picked up a spear from the ground.

"I've been waiting for you, Doctor," the little girl told him before she lunged the spear straight at his hearts, the Doctor dodged it and it whistled passed his face. The girl smiled.

The Doctor kept his eyes on the child. Her smile broadened and pointed to something behind him. He didn't dare take his eyes over of her as she circled towards him, picking up a dagger from the sandy ground.

"Doct-," Raoul gasped from behind the Doctor.

"No," the Doctor whispered, knowing what had happened before he even looked. He turned so he could keep an eye on Melody and look at Raoul at the same time. The spear he dodged lodged into Raoul's chest. The Doctor caught Raoul as he fell to the ground. "I'm sorry, I didn't think. I'm so sorry."

"I shouldn't...have...hid behind...you," Raoul gave a weak smile as blood filled his lungs and he choked.

The Doctor slowly lowered Raoul's body to the ground and his own blood strangled him. The Doctor held his hand and wearily glanced up at Melody. She stood still, clearly enjoying the show. The Doctor sighed and whispered to Raoul, "Samant would have been proud of you." Raoul smiled as his eyes shut and his heart gave out. The Doctor stood up with gritted teeth and turned to Melody whom had started her hunt once more.

"I looked everywhere for you. I wanted to take you home, to your parents," the Doctor told her.

Melody hesitated. "I remember you. I remember my mother, she tried to kill me."

"She was confused," the Doctor tried to explain.

Melody shook her head, "You should have found me sooner."

She ran forward, wielding the dagger. She swiped it at the Doctor. He evaded her as he just managed to avoid the sharp edge. Her form was familiar, he'd studied it before. He knew the moves she chose and could easily defend himself, without harming her. However she caught on fast and suddenly changed form and managed to dig the dagger into the Doctor's thigh. She left it there as she danced away. She spun around and wrenched that spear from Raoul's chest and stood back.

The Doctor growled and stumbled back. He pulled the blade out of his thigh. It hadn't hit any major arteries, but it hurt. Now he had a weapon. He looked slowly up at Melody as she waited. That was the point. She deliberately gave him a weapon. She wanted him to fight back. The Doctor smiled ever so slightly and dropped the dagger onto the sand.

Melody smiled back and lunged forward with the spear. The Doctor defended himself well. He pushed the spear away and danced around it. However a sudden slip in the sand allowed the spear to graze his shoulder. He jumped backwards, before the spear could impale his right heart.

"GAAAAH!" he screamed, as the dagger impaled his left shoulder. He didn't see her pick it up. He couldn't recall where he had left it. The Doctor's knees gave out with the pain.

"I'd read about it," Melody explained. "Time Lords have a defect in their left shoulders. A nerve bundle that, when applied with the smallest of pressures causes agony. How does the dagger feel?"

"RAAH!" the Doctor continued the shout. His left arm laid limp, it caused far too much agony to move it. His trembling right hand moved slowly to the hilt of the dagger. He closed his eyes and tore the blade from him. He quickly dropped it and pressed his hand to the bleeding wound. "AAH!" he panted as he tried to stay awake. He could hear Melody approaching. He looked up, but his vision blurred. "Please," he gasped. Blood seeped through his fingers and down his chest and pooled into the sand. He was too dizzy to stand back up.

Melody came right up to him and pulled his hair back to look upon his pained expression. "I'm supposed to kill you," she told him.

"You do," the Doctor hissed.

"I do," the girl repeated, she let go of his hair and sent a kick into the Doctor's right hand, it jolted the wound to the nerve bundle wound. It sent the Doctor sprawling backwards into darkness.

He awoke again, with a gasp. He looked around, finding himself in a sort of infirmary. He was surprised to find himself without restraints and he slowly tested the flesh above the nerve bundle in his left shoulder. He winced, it hurt and was sensitive, but the wound had closed. With that in mind the Doctor sat up and swung his legs over the side of his bed. He wore new, clean clothes stained gray and scratchy. The Doctor looks around at the other beds, finding them empty. A large window revealed space. It seemed like forever since the Doctor had seen the stars.

A shadow moved to his right. A dark shadowed figure stood by the window, the Doctor hadn't noticed him when his eyes first gazed around the room. The shadow turned and the Doctor's blood froze. The hooded figure's appearance seemed rather skeletal and the Doctor recognized this creature.

"Hello Doctor, I am Lraktham."

"True evil, if there is such a thing," the Doctor whispered.

"You know what I am?" Lraktham asked.

"A demon," the Doctor answered.

"Created in the moment of hate and agony," Lraktham began.

"Devourer of emotion, of pain, hate and rage," the Doctor completed.

"I am the Pikirkelaparan," Lraktham announced.

"Of course, Nightmare produces all sorts of negative emotions, all of this is just a buffet for you. But that doesn't explain the Delchimsa."

"My daughter," Lraktham answered.

"No, Pikirkelaparans have no children. They duplicate their essences and pass them on through other species. Nss'a is of the Delchimsa, a highly telepathic species. Also know as the dream keepers, ah. You are using her as the heart of nightmare. You aren't creative enough nor have the abilities to create the nightmares. You've infected her, damaged her mind so that the child's creativity would be in your control. Nightmare is like a huge buffet for you and Nss'a is the chef, creating delicacies for you."

"Very clever Doctor."

"This is your final warning. Let us all go."

"Or what?"

"I'll bring a complete end to your existence."


	14. The Lions Den part 1

I'm sorry this chapter is so short. It was meant to be longer, but then I decided that I wanted the next part to be from the Doctor's point of view and since I haven't typed that part yet that I should go ahead and post this bit and then maybe tonight I would post the next part...So yeaaah Enjoy!

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She took a deep breath. It was time. Everything was in place and her costume was utterly flawless. She donned her pink skin and the latex prosthetic that added to her disguise. She couldn't even recognize her own reflection. She held her slot medallion tight to her chest. Without it she wouldn't be able to get into Nightmare. Without it, she couldn't prove she was the Author of over forty short fanovels involving various characters and contestants within the overhanging umbrella of Nightmare. With it, she could prove herself to be the one and only Ozia Ezinezkoa.

She gulped as she saw Elrinea, a required acquaintance that got her this far. Clara sighed as Elrinea grabbed her around her neck.

"I have something to show you," Elrinea whispered.

"I haven't even been in!" Clara protested.

"I promise it is completely worth your time, besides, I couldn't have done it without you!"

Clara sighed and allowed Elrinea pull her to a bench. Elrinea pulled out a monitor from her pocket and set up the small video to play. Clara's heart sank as she recognized the 21st century styled park. A couple of weeks ago, Clara assisted with helping Elrinea to find a setting for a contestant to wake up in, disorientated and to get hit by a truck.

"It is illegal to keep recordings from the live-viewing!" Clara hissed at her forced friend.

"I know, but I sweet talked one of the Chuzilmyurians."

Clara winced and stared, horrified as she watched the Doctor wake up. He slowly got to his feet and walked around the park.

"21st century Earth. Impossible. How did I-?"

"Kevin!"

The Doctor turned around and saw a small child chase after a ball right into the street. The Doctor ran after him, pushed the child out of the way as the pick up truck smashed its way into the Doctor's body.

Elrinea stopped the video. "I couldn't have done it without you!" she squealed. "I'll show you more tomorrow. I promise."

Clara shakily got to her feet. "They've called my slot," Clara told her. She walked away and desparetly tried not to throw up.

Clara held out her medallion to the coal black skinned Chuzilmyurian at the registration desk and they gave her access into the viewing room. It was a large auditorium room with a high ceiling and clear pillars that held various contestants within. Around each pillar there were props of things that gave the illusion that the contestants were in their native habitat. Clara gulped as she found the Doctor.

She walked slowly to his pillar. The Doctor sat quietly within. His knees held close to his chest. His eyes closed, clearly trying to block out the slowly filling auditorium. Clara placed her hand onto the Plexiglas and the Doctor opened his dead expressionless eyes and used them to glare at her. Clara activated the panel and audio and visual text appeared:

{}Name: Ozia Ezinezkoa Destination: Authoring Archives Meeting Room *403

"Just leave me alone," the Doctor told her.

Clara gave him a sympathetic smile, because he couldn't recognize her under the make up. Clara pressed another button on the panel and it changed.

{} Category Authare, Slot 56 Meeting Room *403. Take lift 3 Rendezvous 20 minutes.

The Doctor furrowed his brow, sad, resigned. Clara frowned. He had given up. Clara turned around and headed for the lift.


	15. Lion's Den Part 2

I know I said three more chapters left, I'm honestly not sure here. When I got to the end of this chapter, I realized that I'm not quite sure how to yet dig the Doctor out of this hole I have created. Not to mention tie up all of the loose ends. I was aiming to keep this story at 40,000 words as well. I'm not sure if I can finish this story in 2,000 words to be honest. Anyway, enjoy! And please review. Any ideas or suggestions are wonderful.

* * *

They shoved the Doctor into the same small room. For the past two days they have brought him to this room and the room where they plugged him into the dreamshare. Over two hundred times he had been forced to interact with the oh so dedicated fans of Nightmare. Over two hundred times he met aliens and people interested only in the Doctor's suffering. They hooked him up to the dreamshare and made him relive his worst memories. They tortured him and burned him in his dreams. They made him watch children die and his closest friends betray him. They made him think that they were rescuing him only to let him down. The Doctor couldn't remember what was real anymore and when they were done with him they put him in the glass tube as the fanatics watched him as if he were in a zoo.

The Chuzilmyurians, as he discovered their species, forced him into the corner of the room taped off with red stripes. They didn't restrain him, only, they left him standing in the red striped section. They would emit an electrical current if he left the red striped section, it was keyed only to his DNA. That meant that he couldn't leave that section, but the fanatics could enter into the section, touch him and prod him, without being electrocuted. He couldn't run away, he already earned multiple burn marks from failed escape attempts.

The Chuzilmyurians left the room. It was bare except for a table and two chairs which came partially onto the red striped area. He could sit down and rest his elbows on the table without being punished. He did that. He was too tired to confront the pink creature that arranged this meeting twenty minutes ago.

At twenty-two minutes the pink alien entered. She didn't say anything, she just quietly sat down in the chair opposite of him. He couldn't place what she was. She could have been any species, under the guise of cosplay. She had brown hair with stripes of purple, blue and pink highlights. Her long hair bundled into a bun with bits of hair defying gravity. Her fringe was shorter on the right side, but on the left it was down to her chin and covered half of her face. Her rosy pink skin was mostly covered by a blue and black uniform with red markings the Doctor was too tired to place. Her ears were long but had fin like curves and points. Her bright green eyes, the Doctor assumed, the left eye was hidden under her fringe, seemed to glow yellow in the shadows. Her lips seemed to hold a permanent frown that made the Doctor nervous.

"Hello, Doctor," the pink creature spoke.

"Hello, Ozia," the Doctor responded through gritted teeth. Her forehead crinkled at that and the Doctor smiled, "Your name on the panel called you Ozia Ezinezkoa. I'm not stupid."

"I know you aren't, you are brilliant," Ozia told him. "And my friend."

The Doctor scoffed, "That's what they all say then they plug me in and torture me."

"I'm not going to do that," Ozia promised.

"No?"

"Never," She sighed when she saw the look of doubt in his eyes. "Don't you recognize it?" she asked quietly.

"Recognize what?"

"My name...my last name," she prompted.

"Ezinezkoa, it means impossi-," the Doctor stopped. "No, he whispered. "Why are you here?" He demanded.

"Clever boy," Ozia gave a brief smile and slowly stood up, "I'm here to help."

The Doctor stood up and backed away from her. "Please don't do this."

Ozia stopped and frowned. "Doctor?" she whispered.

"I have watched a thousand Clara's come to my aid, only to torture me," the Doctor whispered. "And they actually looked like her. I must still be in the dream, they've given me another drug."

"Doctor?" Ozia stepped closer.

"Stay away from me, dream or no dream, you aren't Clara, Clara is gone, everyone is gone!" the Doctor cried.

"Doctor, shhhh!" Ozia warned. "If you are too loud they will come in here and end our session early."

"Good!"

"Doctor!" Ozia shouted as she stepped into the red stripes. "Just give me a hug and it will all go away." She opened her arms to him.

The Doctor shook his head, he was so tired of this. Tears threatened. "This is a trick. They've done it all, They send my friends to me to help me, then I have to watch them die. Again, and again. I can't- I can't breathe!"

Ozia completed the last few steps forward and wrapped her arms around the Doctor's trembling body. He stiffened at her touch.

"Please, don't do this."

"I'm sorry." Ozia's apology almost sounded genuine. But he couldn't fall into that trap again.

"Really?" he spat at her.

"Yes, now hug me back," she ordered.

The Doctor shook his head.

"The longer you hold me, the longer you get before I have them plug you in," she threatened. The Doctor gritted his teeth and wrapped his arms around Ozia. "Hold me as if you you're afraid we'll be pulled apart."

Tears spilled from the Doctor's eyes and he closed them and obeyed the pink alien, pretending to be his impossible girl. As soon as his grip tightened, Ozia lifted her left hand to the back of the Doctor's head. Something hard and metallic pressed against the base of his skull. It pierced through his flesh and linked into the mind probe based there. The Doctor screamed in agony as electricity emitted from the mind probe and the device on Ozia's hand. The Doctor opened his eyes but everything blurred from the bright room and the red stripes melded together. Other colors introduced themselves before his visual cortex and his brain couldn't register it. A whirlwind of sound forced its way into the Doctor's ear drums and he felt himself scream again.

His arms slipped from their hug and he fell to the ground. His stomach rebelled against him and the little bit of food the Delchimsa granted him was expelled from his body. His head pounded as his body was ready to give out. However before he could fully slip into blessed darkness, the Doctor felt a sharp scrape on his arm and another drug forced its way into his blood stream.

The Doctor cried and muttered, "No more," so quietly that he couldn't hear his own words. The new drug forced his mind awake, he couldn't run away from the dream. "Please, I don't want to play anymore."

He felt them, the two aliens, around him touching him. "Its just a dream," he whispered. They couldn't hear him, he couldn't hear them. He realized then, that no one could hear him. His eyes opened in wild panic and a thick darkness loomed around him.

"Stop it! My eyes!" he cried. He could see, he couldn't hear a thing. His head pounded in agony. The back of his neck stung from the vicious contact with the pink alien.

Ozia, the not Clara, still held onto the Doctor. Another alien took a portion of the Doctor's weight. The Doctor jerked away as the new alien burned him in the darkness. The new alien was wrong, like a paradox waiting to happen or a fixed point creating more fixed points. A potential fixed point paradox. The Doctor's whole being shied away from such an impossible, wrong thing. And when the Potential Fixed Point Paradox touched him, the Doctor felt like he was being burned alive.

Slowly the Doctor recognized that horrid thing. Jack. Jack was that thing. "No," the Doctor whispered to himself. "I'm dreaming," the Doctor reminded himself. That was the only thing that made sense. He must have still been connected to the dreamshare. When he thought he was awake, they must of stimulated it all in his head. They made him think that he was unplugged an visiting with another terrible fanatic of the Sadistic Nightmare. They made him think that he was being 'stolen' by the pink thing. Maybe it was her own plot that inspired the story.

And that was what Nightmare did at the live showings. They allowed the fanatics to play out their own scenarios in the minds of Nightmare's captives. So the pink thing wanted the Doctor to think she was Clara 'rescuing him' and that Jack was there to help.

The drugs and chemicals they forced into his veins warped reality, stimulated his brain, worked his brain against him, to make him think that he was feeling the presence of Jack. Tricked him mind, that what he scented and felt and saw and heard, was whatever they wanted him to feel.

With that final realization that he was still dreaming. And that his suffering and dreams were being recorded for the entertainment of Nightmare. And that his fear, rage and despair was being used to feed the Pikirkelaparan known as Lraktham, the Doctor decided to give up.

"I'm done," he told the Dream Jack and Dream not Clara, aka Ozia. He let his body turn to jelly and allowed the Dream Jack and Dream not Clara zip him away through the Time Vortex. The drugs in his systems stimulated his brain and made it pound harder as they landed in a heap on concrete ground, also stimulated by his brain. He allowed himself to remain limp. The dream drug they gave him, wouldn't allow him to dream escape. The drugs they fed to his actual body that stimulated the dream, kept him so far down under that he couldn't even image an attempt to over ride them. He couldn't escape, but he didn't have to play the game. It was the only way he could fight them.

"Congratulations, Nightmare, you have successfully broken a Time Lord," he announced, "Now that I am broken, I expect it won't be very entertaining for you."

He felt the Dream-not-Clara squeeze his hand, as if to try and comfort him. The Doctor remained limp. He decided he wouldn't speak anymore. It only helped to entertain Nightmare and that was not on his to-do list. Not anymore. They wanted to see him fight and struggle and be afraid. He would not. The Doctor would not play their game.

However, the Doctor couldn't completely ignore everything. He still winced when they heaved him onto a gurney and turn him over onto his stomach. He sensed another alien come near him that smelled antiseptic. The new one began mucking with the mind probe still attached to his brain. The Doctor realized that was how he was blinded, even if it was all just a dream. The probe jammed and instead of recording his dreams, it disconnected the feed from his optic nerve. Well his dream-optic nerve. The Doctor was still dreaming. Dreaming that he had the mind probe and that the mind probe had damaged his eye sight and ear drums. Dreamception.

"Ah!" he gasped as the new alien bumped into something in his head.

"Almost there, Doctor," the voice from the third alien came. The Doctor slowly recognized it as Martha. No, dream Martha. The Doctor remained limp, he was done playing the game.

"Doctor? Can you hear me, I'm so sorry," Clara's voice came. Dream Clara, because he was dreaming, the Doctor decided.

"Can you remove it all now?" the potential fixed point paradox-Dream Jack asked. The Doctor tensed as his brain convinced the Doctor that Jack was there.

"Yes, but you shouldn't have given him the neural stimulant. He should be unconscious for his!" Martha snapped at Jack.

"I had no choice, he could have had another dream and it would have been broadcasted to Nightmare."

"Even at two-thousand years away?" Clara asked.

"Yes, they would receive it eventually and even if we wanted to risk it, there is the chance of anyone hacking into the signal. It could have devastating repercussions on the future. I didn't dare take the risk."

"So we can't let him sleep at all until it is removed?" Martha clarified.

"The risk of him dreaming his memories into a signal that could be accessed by anyone, what do you think?"

The Doctor didn't respond. It was a fair point, even if it was just a dream, it seemed that his Dream Jack was on his side. But the Doctor wasn't going to align himself with anyone while he dreamed. He would probably be forced to witness Jack being tortured, or something. It wasn't something he wanted to experience, so he blocked dreams people out.

"Doctor, can you hear me?" the Doctor could, but didn't answer. He wouldn't play the game.

"Can you open your eyes?" Martha asked.

The Doctor didn't respond, refused. He would not play the game.

He tried to move his head away as Martha forced an eyelid in and shined a penlight into his eye. He blinked away from her an glared.

"Doctor!" Clara came into view, partially into view. Her hair was, wrong, pink, blue and purple. Her eyes were green and her skin was pink. But the shape of her face was right and her voice was right.

"Dream stimulant gone wrong, Ozia," the Doctor told her. "If you're trying to take the role of Clara, you're doing a mash up job of it."

"Doctor, I am Clara, I just haven't washed the pink out yet, look!"

The Doctor watched as Clara pulled out the contact lenses that returned her eyes to brown. The Doctor frowned and turned away from her. The image of Martha came into view. She looked worn and tired.

"New face and new friend, I see," Martha smiled at him, "What happened to your face?"

The Doctor slowly reached his hand up to his face to feel around. Same long chin and prominent cheek bones, floppy hair. Nothing seemed out of place.

"No, I mean, you're different from last time I saw you."

"When was that?" the Doctor asked, irritated with himself for playing the game.

"Davros and the planets in the sky, though I admit, when Unit raided the Naismith we found you and the master and Wilfred Mott on the security camera."

The Doctor didn't add anything to Martha's statement. He took notice of his Dream body and found that he could sit himself up without too much pain. His eyes widened suddenly as he saw on the other side of the room, sitting across from him was the Tardis. The Doctor jumped up, but swayed, his legs still felt like jelly. Jack and Clara tried to assist him and maneuver him back to the gurney. He fought them and refused to cooperate in the direction they wanted to move him.

"Doctor, let us help you!" Clara whinged at him.

"Doc, you aren't well," Jack scolded.

"Let me go!" the Doctor roared at him.

"No!" both Clara and Jack yelled back.

"Doctor, if you won't rest, then where do you want to go?" Clara asked.

"Tardis," the Doctor whispered, his eyes glued to her dark windows.

"She's still repairing," Jack told him, "She won't let anyone in."

"Let him find out for himself," Clara stated and nodded at Jack. They helped the Doctor across the room. He pulled away from them and pressed his head against the Tardis doors.

The Dream Tardis doors that is. Suddenly the doors opened and the Doctor fell in head first into the Tardis.

"What?" Jack asked as he and Clara helped the Doctor up.

The Doctor pulled away from them and unsteadily stepped into the Tardis. Her console was damaged and he could smell badger pirates about. The Doctor stiffened as he felt the Tardis caress his mind and he wept. "Just a dream," he muttered.

"Doctor?" Clara asked.

The Doctor slowly turned to face Clara, tears streaming down his cheeks. "You've broken me, Ozia. You. I've been hit with buses, I've been raped, I've been sent to medieval planets and tortured in brutal machines. I've watched as Amy and Rory managed to rescue you mean and then die by my own hands. I've watched the Tardis burn and children die, all dreams created by the fanatics of Nightmare. Then you, Ozia, you bring me here to convince me my friends have saved me. Bring me to my Tardis. This elaborate dream you've written for me. Well done. Very convincing. And it is true, I don't ever want to wake up as long as I can be with my Tardis. So go on, have some other thing force me out. My mind won't be able to handle it. To be reunited with my Tardis and if you break our connection, my hearts, my hearts in the real world won't be able to take it. I'll die."

The Doctor slumped to the floor and wept. He couldn't take it, couldn't bare to be dragged out of his Tardis. He'd rather die than to wake up from this dream. He linked his arms around the rails as if it would anchor him to his ship. But once they pulled the plug, he would wake up again, so very far away from his ship.

"Amelia, you might as well come out and give me another warning. I know it is just a dream. Might as well invite the whole gang," the Doctor whispered. He opened his eyes, expecting her to come to him, but instead of Amy, Ozia the pink Clara was kneeling in front of him.

"Doctor, it's me, this is the Tardis and you are awake."

"You're the author of this fan plot," the Doctor accused, "I've been through over two hundred of them. So don't insult me with your lies. Your costume isn't very convincing."

"Doctor, it was the only way I could get in. Jack was supposed to come in too, but they only accepted my application. I'm sorry for everything, really I am. But you have to trust me that you're safe now."

The Doctor sighed, "You could tell me that for a hundred years, but I won't believe you. I'm not going to be entertainment anymore. I'm not going to play the game. Do whatever you want to me. I'll never trust you."


	16. The Never Ending Nightmare

Author's note: It has been ages since I've updated. Mostly due to the fact that everything I wrote looked like garbage. I expected to write more over the holiday, but things became complicated. Finally today I was inspired to write (mostly because the wifi wasn't working. Best motivation, right there.) I expect to complete this story within at least two more chapters. Now that the block is gone new ideas are popping up. Anyway, enjoy!

* * *

Chapter 16 Never Ending Nightmare

"Doctor," Clara sighed and stopped just as she moved towards him. He flinched, terrified of her.

"Clara, I need to talk to you and Jack," Martha came into the Tardis and pulled on Jack's sleeve.

"C'mon Clara," Jack helped to pull her away from the broken form of the Doctor.

"I know what you're doing!" the Doctor shouted at them as they left the Tardis. "Giving me time to myself to develop some security. So that when I wake it'll hurt more. Clever and cruel!"

Jack and Martha wandered away from the Tardis, Clara covered her mouth with her hands and tried not to cry. "He thinks he is still..."

"I know," Martha answered, "trying to tell him otherwise isn't going to work."

"What do we do? How can we prove to him that this is real?"

"We can't," Jack realized as he spoke, "He knows that Nightmare can stimulate and manipulate his mind in any way they want."

"What if we told him something only he would-," Clara started.

But Martha interrupted, "He'll think it is his mind betraying him."

"What about something only one of us knew..." Clara grasped for the quickly falling straws that bordered her on the edge of despair.

"The way they use his brain against him, there is nothing to convince him that an external force of good is working with him," Jack sighed.

"So what do we do?" Clara asked.

"Now, we wait," Martha announced, "Maybe you should go get a shower, seeing the companion he knows might help him."

"Might," Clara added sadly.

"We've got showers..." Jack pointed towards the back.

"And the Tardis has my clothes, shampoo and everything I need," Clara turned quickly for the Tardis.

"Clara," Martha caught her hand, "Trying to convince him will only work against us."

"Just talking to him isn't trying to convince him,"

"Clara, I know you don't know me, but I know the Doctor and I've dealt with this sort of trauma before. The Doctor is the only one who can make himself see the truth. You have to promise me you won't try and convince him on your own."

"I can't make that promise," Clara told her, "You might have known the Doctor, but you don't know him now. You don't know what he's been through. I can help him." Clara pulled herself from Martha's grip and headed back into the Tardis. Once she was in, she calmed herself down and walked slowly towards the hallway leading towards her room. The Doctor spoke to her as she walked passed.

"Back again are you? Looking for more 'whump' opportunities?" the Doctor glared at her.

Clara winced at the slang term used by the fanatics. "No Doctor," she answered, "Just going for a shower...unless the Tardis doesn't have power..." She didn't think about that before. But maybe a shower in the Tardis was a bad idea, especially with bits of her strewn about the floor.

The Doctor closed his eyes and shuddered, he muttered, "A shower should be okay..." He watched her suspiciously as she walked passed him towards her room.

When she came back through a half hour later she was back to her right skin color and a proper Clara outfit. She found the Doctor was still in the same place, his arms still linked around the railing. His eyes were drifting closed but as he heard Clara approach he snapped awake. He renewed his hold to his beloved ship. He looked up at Clara in terror with dead eyes.

"You need to sleep," Clara told him.

"Go away," the Doctor croaked at her, his mouth was dry. He held onto the rail as she came closer to him.

"If this is a dream..." Clara stopped when the Doctor glared at her. "Okay so maybe it is all just a dream. Or maybe it is real and you are in the Tardis. Either way if Nightmare was trying to convince you you were home...Then.."

"Then what?" the Doctor growled at her.

"Then take a breather."

The Doctor shook his head.

"If they tried to wake you up now, then holding onto the rails like that wouldn't stop them, would it?" Clara asked.

The Doctor stared at her, but seemed to realize she was right. He winced as he slowly pulled away from the railing. He sat down heavily. He relaxed his aching arms and shoulders. However he didn't break contact with the rail. "You are just proving it is all a dream," the Doctor told her.

"What?"

"The REAL Clara doesn't know anything about Nightmare."

"Oh Doctor, I'm sorry we left you there. We came as soon as we could, the only way we could."

"We? Ah yes, Jack," the Doctor spat. "That's a new low, bringing in Jack out of my memories, it isn't like I have enough guilt to deal with but you bring him in too. Thanks."

Clara hung her head in defeat. "How do I convince you this is all real?"

"You don't. Not anymore. Do you know how many times I woke up, discovering I was still trapped?"

"Twenty-seven times before the viewing," Clara whispered. "After that it could have well as been 300 times."

The Doctor stared at her, "Only Nightmare could know those numbers. You are Nightmare."

"Doctor, they filmed it, I saw everything, in your dreams. What happened with Samant and Raoul-"

"NO!" the Doctor shouted. Suddenly he threw himself backwards and began to jerk and tremble on the floor. His head connected with the floor with a sickening crunch. His eyes closed and he grimaced and shook.

"Martha!" Clara called as she clambered to the Doctor's side. Just as she pushed his shoulders back to still him Martha came running in.

"Don't restrain him!" Martha shouted. Barely a second later and the Doctor came to a sudden stop.

"He was convulsing!" Clara cried.

Martha moved into position and tipped the Doctor's head back, "C'mon you daft sod! Breathe!" She cleared his air way and he brought in a sharp breath and slowly fell into a ragged pattern. "He banged his head," she told Clara. "We need to get him to sickbay, go get Jack, we need his help."

With Jack, Clara and Martha they relocated the Doctor safely to sickbay. The Tardis Interface assisted with the correct bags of fluids to give intravenously to the Doctor. The Tardis Interface warned them that the neural stimulant had caused some damage to his already fragile mind and explained that it interacted with the drugs given to him by Nightmare.

"What do we do?" Clara asked.

"No more drugs," the Interface warned. "Expect withdrawal symptoms."

"No more fitting, I hope?" Jack asked.

"No," the Interface sighed as if she agreed with Jack. "A waiting period of sixty-two hours is required for this detox. Natural vitamin

supplements are provided in the drips."

"And that's it?" Clara asked, 62 hours and then he is cured?"

"The detox will be complete. Mental stability is unknown."

"We hope?" Jack asked.

The Interface nodded. "If Mental stability fails we will need to move him to the zero room."

"So we detox him and then put him in the nut case room."

Martha glared at Clara.

"Have you been in there? It's creepy!"

"Humans should spend no longer than twelve hours at a time in the zero room," the Interface commented.

"Explain why," Clara told the Interface.

"The Zero Room is a intensive care ward for Time Lords to assist with healing and repairing telepathic forces. Some humans have a latent ability, but most do not. The ward will attempt to fortify abilities that do not exist. Side effects include, hallucinations, change in personality, inability to sleep, doziness, phantom pains, paranoia, vomi-"

"I get the point," Martha said stopping the Tardis from her explanation. "What about the Doctor, you don't know if he will be stable mentally, but what do you mean? Will he realize he is in reality?"

"Unknown," the Tardis Interface commented sadly.

"Is there any way to convince him?" Clara asked.

"Unknown."

"Is there anything else we can do?" Clara asked.

"Keep him on the drip, keep him calm. Sedatives are not permitted. If calming techniques fail, relocate to the Zero Room."

"For 62 hours," Martha added.

"For 62 hours," the Tardis repeated.

* * *

The Doctor woke, tired and in pain. He drew in a deep gasp and opened his eyes, he instantly recognized his own sickbay. He sat up, but a wave of dizziness overwhelmed him. A sudden flare of pain in his stomach forced him to his side as he vomited up the little bits of nothing onto the floor. A hand steadied him as he gasped and cried. His head ached and his mouth burned with sour bile.

"Lay back, Doctor."

The Doctor jerked away from the voice and hand, nearly sending him tumbling off the other side of the bed. Hands caught him and guided him backwards to lay down.

"Doctor, can you hear me?"

"You aren't real," the Doctor slurred, trying to fight off the hallucination.

"Doctor, it's me, it's Martha, you're safe."

"No, no, no," the Doctor muttered. He cracked open his eyes as tears streamed down his face. Martha stood over him, looking at him with obvious concern. The Doctor cried out in fear as Martha transformed in front of him, from the friend he so desperately wanted into his most feared and hated enemy.

"DOC-TOR!" the Dalek screeched at him.

"No!" the Doctor cried as he tried to cover his ears. Why did Daleks always shout?

"WE ARE IN THE TARDIS," the Dalek gloated over him.

"Please!" the Doctor cried as the Dalek suction arm brushed his cheek, making him gag again.

"RE-STRAINTS ARE NE-CES-SARY."

"ARG!" the Doctor shouted as another slide beside him. The Doctor forced himself back up, "Gah!" he cried as a human puppet grabbed his hand with claws. The Doctor roared as he broke free and leaped off of the bed. His legs turned to rubber and crashed him to the floor. The Doctor tried to drag himself away, but he was too weak and the Daleks were everywhere.

"CALM YOUR-SELF OR YOU WILL BE EX-TER-MIN-ATED!"

"Let me go!" the Doctor struggled as human puppets grabbed his arms and pulled him up.

"Doctor!"

The Doctor's head turned as he saw Rose. Her mascara ran down her cheeks in tear stained trails. The Daleks had her pinned against the wall. Their fire arm pointed at her chest.

"Not Rose, please not Rose!" the Doctor cried, he tried to get to her, but he couldn't. The Dalek who pinned her, fired a bolt of plasma into her chest. She arched back as her flesh flashed blue and for one terrible second her skeleton blazed white. The flash cut off, returning Rose to the Doctor's regular pink-yellow human, Rose was dead before she hit the ground.

"No!" the Doctor cried as he once more became limp in the human puppets arms. They dragged him out of sickbay, leaving a trail of his own desperate tears. His hearts were too broken to pay attention to the room they entered. When the puppets let him go, he slowly fell, but never hit the floor.

"R-A-G-G-E-D-Y"

"What?" the Doctor asked, trying to find the courage to open his eyes.

"D-O-C-T-O-R"

"Amy," the Doctor whispered as he floated on nothing. He was too tired to open his eyes.

"My raggedy Doctor,"

"I'm dreaming again."

"Yes you are."

"I'm dreaming I'm in the Zero Room with my best friend."

"That is half true."

The Doctor opened his eyes and there she floated too, an ageless Amelia Pond. "Half true?" the Doctor asked. "This is the Zero Room and you are Amy."

"Yes, but you are only dreaming about me. You really are in the Zero room."

"I wish."

"You are. Do you want to know why, when you were in Nightmare, I turned up? I turned up to tell you the truth. Nightmare never used me, because you have me labeled in your brain as The Fairy Tale. They wanted you to believe you were awake."

"They've done it again, tricked me into thinking I'm home with my friends."

"Too good to be true?" Amy asked.

"Yes," the Doctor sighed.

"Them telling you you're awake when you are convinced that they will do anything to convince you."

"I can't trust anyone here. They are all figments of my mind, controlled by Nightmare."

"Except for me."

"Except you."

"Only I can convince you you are awake," Amy told him.

"But you are just me, a part of my mind."

"Designed to anchor you to reality."

"But Nightmare could use you."

"They wouldn't. They found me under The Fairy Tale, to them it is counter-productive."

"But you have no proof."

"I am you," Amy reminded him.

"If what you say is true, then how are you going to convince me?"

"Me, which means you are going to make a decision. You are going to choose what is real."

"But if I choose wrong?"

"It is only wrong if you wake up in Nightmare."

"If I wake up back in Nightmare, I will kill myself," the Doctor told Amy.

"Let's hope you don't wake up in Nightmare then."

The Doctor stared at her. "I don't want to die and I don't want to wake up there again," he told her.

"I know."

"I can't do it. I can't wake myself up."

"You can do it."

"I'm afraid," the Doctor whispered.

"Trust me," Amy told him.

"How?"

"Fish fingers and custard."

The Doctor gritted his teeth and closed his eyes. He prepared himself for the worst as he woke himself up.


End file.
